What Dreams May Come
by Fluffy Nabs
Summary: Ninth/Tenth Doctor Rose - Smut between episodes, with a good dose of romance, and a bit of angst
1. What Dreams May Come

What Dreams May Come

By Fluffy Nabs

Doctor Who – Ninth Doctor/Rose PWOP

Rating: M

Rose didn't know that he was telepathic.

Usually his telepathy depended on being in close proximity or physical contact with someone. Sometimes, when the situation was do-or-die, or if he had already established a close bond with a person, he was able to communicate telepathically over greater distances. When his people had still existed, he'd been able to feel them, and they him, for that was part of the burden of being a Time Lord.

Rose was different. What he had with her was more than a "close bond," but he wasn't sure what it was, really. He knew that she had a few small words in her native tongue that could convey the smallest measure of this feeling, and some of those words were respect, awe, love, and desire.

Yes, even that last one. He wasn't blind, after all. But no matter how charming a human was, they were still human, and he wasn't. What she wanted out of life, what they nearly all wanted eventually – namely a stable home environment, a mate, and the propagation of their species in the form of offspring – was, if not impossible, quite impractical for him.

He couldn't leave the TARDIS, any more than he could stop breathing. He couldn't give up his life, this mad dash across the universe, seeing and touching and feeling and acting and doing and _living_ like there was no tomorrow, as the saying went. To settle down away from it all – well, Rose had said it herself to her mum, "If you'd seen it out there, the size of it, you couldn't stay at home."

If he let her know how he really felt, would she change? Would he? Suppose he let these new feelings overwhelm him and acted on them, in a way that she would know, in a physical way, wouldn't she want more? Wouldn't she want what he couldn't give her, what would be unfair to impose upon her? Humans were so prone to physical expression, and Rose especially so, it seemed. The holding of hands, bumping shoulders together, hugs.

And there was no denying her healthy appetite for the other sex, which was only natural, considering her age and species and timeline. No repressed Victorian wallflower, she. Once or twice before Adam, she'd turned those eyes of hers on him, and he knew what she was thinking, and that she was thinking it about him. He'd known that the invitation was there, if he'd been willing to take her up on it.

But again, she was human, and he wasn't, and neither of them was really ready to deal with something like that, not really, so he'd never answered that look in her eyes. Not when she could see it, anyway.

So of course, the need not being met by him, she'd turned to others, looking for that tangible physical contact that her species craved so much, and had found more than one pretty young thing willing to give her what she wanted.

He hadn't expected another emotion to stem from that; something akin to what Rose would call jealousy. Overwhelmed by it, he'd always managed to steer her away from them. He knew her frustration was building, but what to do? Unable to give her what she wanted himself, and unwilling to let someone else, he was at an impasse.

Mickey the Idiot. Adam, that selfish prat. None of them knew how fantastic she really was, how deep she ran, how _pure_, a spring of intense life welling out of her eyes, from every pore of her skin.

When she touched him, it was like brushing against lightning. When she smiled, it was like bringing the dawn. When she turned her eyes to him, it was like looking into the deeps of endless Space itself, full of everything there is in the Universe.

He kept his mind linked to hers constantly, now, ever since her decision to trust him at 10 Downing Street. It was only a very thin thread of connection, like holding hands or listening to a loved one just breath over the telephone during a pause in conversation. She didn't know he did it, didn't even know he was capable. Usually, he was too busy with his own thoughts, his own perception of things that were happening, to pay much attention to the link that bound them. Sometimes, though, when she was feeling a particularly strong emotion he could feel it, too.

Like right now, for instance. She was sleeping, having turned in an hour ago. The TARDIS was humming quietly, herself in a resting mode, and he was enmeshed under the console, sonic screwdriver in his teeth and elbow-deep in wires when his connection to her knocked. He paused in what he was doing, and opened the mental door between them.

Lust sprang at him and the intensity of it made him jump. He hit his head on the grate and fell back again before he recovered from the surprise.

She was having one of _those_ dreams.

He knew it, even though he hadn't gone that far into her mind, yet. He tried to swallow, but his mouth was dry. He untangled his arms from the wires and spit out the sonic screwdriver, then covered his face with his hands. He should have known something like this would happen. The Doctor took a deep breath, and concentrating, tried to close the door. Then he tried again, and again.

It remained stubbornly open.

He was … _reacting_ to her feelings as they raged in his brain. He couldn't concentrate. The tide of emotion was growing stronger and stronger, and he couldn't believe that she could feel like this and not explode.

Who was she thinking of?

As soon as the thought entered his mind, Mickey's face flashed behind it, and there rose that ugly little possessive monster again.

The Doctor opened the door wider and walked through.

He was standing in a rose garden. Soft golden sunlight shone down, lighting up the luminous green leaves of the trees and the red and yellow and pink and coral and white petals of the roses like stained glass. It was warm, but not too warm, with just a hint of refreshing breeze.

He didn't expect to see her holding desperately to himself, tall and lanky, clad in a leather jacket and dark green jumper, short hair doing nothing to hide the teapot-handle ears, black jeans doing nothing to hide …

The realization that she'd been dreaming about him, one of _those_ dreams, floored him. The Doctor saw this as the opportunity that it was, to kiss her, to know her, without the mess of real interaction, and stepped into himself, dispelling the imaginary him that she'd created, and merging flawlessly with her dream.

He was kissing her, just how she liked to be kissed. Soft lips grazing, just sparking the nerve endings, cupping the back of her head in one hand, tracing the line of her neck with the other. He was much taller than she was, and he had to stoop a little to kiss her. Her breath was sweet and warm and feathered across his cheek like a caress.

Her hands were busy clutching his shoulders, his arms, his ribs though jacket and jumper. Suddenly she slipped them to the waistline of his jeans and tugged out the jumper, and then she was touching his stomach. He felt the muscles there tighten, felt the shivering move lower. He dropped his lips from her mouth to her chin, along the line of her jaw, and to her neck. When he reached the place where it met her shoulder she made a noise that shot through to the core of him, and arched toward him. He did it again and again and again, loving that sound, her gasping for breath, the movement of her body against his.

"Off," she demanded, pulling his jumper higher up his stomach. He tore his hands from her skin only long enough to shrug out of the jack, and pull the jumper over his head. The fell from him and disappeared into dream-space. Her hands were on him, his chest, his arms, his stomach, tracing the dips and ridges of the wiry muscles there. "No chest hair," she observed.

"Did you expect it?" The Doctor pulled back from her enough to watch her eyes, looking for disappointment.

She met his gaze and shook her head. "Don't know what to expect," she told him shyly. Her glance dropped briefly and he knew what she was wondering. "Never made love to an alien, before."

"I've never made love to a human, before, either."

"Are we, you know…" and she trailed off, her eyebrows wiggling suggestively.

"This is your dream," he told her, a lump in his throat at the almost-lie. "You tell me."

"I tell you yes," she whispered, and tilted her had back to be kissed. He happily obliged.

They kissed for what seemed like hours, and somehow he managed to take of her shirt. He sprinkled kisses on her collarbone, across her shoulders, down the valley of her breasts, and on the breasts themselves where they rose above her bra.

"This bra is a problem," he told her sincerely, eliciting laughter from her eyes. "It's just in the way."

"Oh, no," she sighed, and stepped back. "I guess I'll have to fix it." She reached behind and unclasped the offending garment, and then flung it away from her, where it melted away to that same place where all clothes go in dreams. At the dumbstruck look on his face she laughed and twirled around. "Like what you see?"

"Fantastic," he breathed. He fell to his knees before her, and reached up to her, her white skin radiant in the sunshine. Placing a hand on either side of her breasts with reverence, as if she might evaporate at his touch, he gently kissed her right breast. "Brilliant," he sighed, and kissed the left one. "Oh, Rose."

Her hands ran through his short hair, down his neck and across his shoulders. She tilted her head back, the heavy fall of her golden hair gleaming like sunlight. "My Doctor," she whispered.

She smelled like Rose. He paid close attention to each breast, feeling them swell and firm and his hands and in his mouth, feeling the heat rush in with the color as she blushed from his ministrations. Wherever she touched him, she left a trail of fire. There was a spot just beneath his ears that she kept brushing, and it was driving him _mad_ with a pleasure that shot straight to his groin. He'd never been so hard in his life as he was now.

They needed a bed. He stood up again, and hugged her close to him, his hands gliding across her back, up and down her spine, just as she was touching him. He felt the strong and rapid beat of her heart against him, and she glanced down at his chest with a puzzled expression on her face. "What…" she started.

He kissed her. "Two hearts," he said. "I'm sure you've noticed before." Then he picked her up and laid her down on the bed that had come into being during their kiss. "All the better to love you with, my dear."

She giggled. "Are you the big, bad wolf, then? Are you going to eat me up?"

"If you want." He raked his gaze along the length of her, pausing at the apex of her jeans-clad thighs. "I can do anything you want me to, right now."

"Then come here, you." Her outstretched arms folded themselves around his neck. They kissed again, and he tasted her tongue, sweet and fresh and hot against his. She lay on her back and he was close at her side, one leg thrown over her two, his body pressed tightly to hers. He ran a hand over her skin, feeling the dips and curves, the softness of her skin. When he pressed his palm over her breast and squeezed slightly goose bumps raised on her flesh and he pulled back to see them. He squeezed again, and she arched to meet him. He smiled as he saw the goose bumps on her skin.

"Ah, humans," he said lightly. "You're so adorable. I just love the way you react so strongly to everything. Right now I've made each and every hair on your body stand up, and all the nerve endings are at their most receptive."

"Yeah," she gasped, her eyes closed and her throat bared.

"Perfect," he murmured, and kissed her throat while his hand skimmed from her breast, down her stomach, and into her jeans. He felt the curls there, soft and coarse at the same time, and beneath them her sex. He knew the rudiments of human physiology – he was a doctor, after all – and praised his knowledge as he found the bud of nerves he'd been looking for. When he moved his fingers back and forth across it her whole body rose up off the bed, her legs spread wider, and she began convulsing spasmodically.

Although her mouth was open, no sound issued forth during her orgasm. The Doctor watched in awe the experience that she was going through. Her eyes were tightly shut, and tears squeezed out. Her skin turned a deep pink color across her face and neck and breasts. Her hands clenched the bed sheets tightly. Her hips bucked, her toes were curled. He slipped a finger lower, and felt a slick wetness there, as well as the clenching of muscles. She was ready for him.

He stilled his fingers and she slowly relaxed. Her buttocks came to rest on the sheets again, and she started panting, though slowly. Gradually she fingers and toes uncurled, and then a languidness seemed to come over her limbs.

The Doctor planted a kiss on her navel.

"Hmm," she said. "That was so good."

"Can I have a go?"

Rose cracked an eye open and looked down at him, his long fingers poised at the button to her fly. A grin spread across her face. "Yeah, please do. I never get tired of doing _that_."

He undid the button, and then the zipper, and hooked a finger on either side of her jeans as well as her panties. Pink, he noticed, with little daisies patterned over them. She lifted her bum and he pulled her clothes down. He kept his eyes on her panties, not trusting himself to look at her yet for fear of forgetting what he was doing. When her clothes were off and gone, he raised his eyes from her ankles, along the sweet curve of her calf, past the cute dimples in her knees, up the length of her still-quivering thighs, and finally to her sex.

Dark brown hair, the same as her eyebrows, covered it in glossy ringlets. She was swollen and pink and shiny with slippery wetness, peeking out from the surrounding curls. He felt he would burst if he wasn't allowed inside of her. But then he remembered.

"Are we still playing Little Red Riding Hood?"

She laughed, a throaty, rich sound that set his blood racing. "If you really want to," she said, still laughing. "But right now what I really want to do, is see you." Her expression sobered. "I want to know you, Doctor."

"Close your eyes." He stood up off the bed.

She did, and then opened one again to the merest slit.

"No peeking!" he told her in mock sternness. She obeyed, grinning, and he quickly shucked his pants and boxers, toed off his socks and shoes and then got back onto the bed. He was about waist-level with her, for she was still laying on her back. It was the easiest thing in the world to touch her womanhood, explore with his fingers the place that brought her so much pleasure, while he explored with his eyes her beautiful face. "All right, you can look now."

She opened her eyes and dropped them immediately to look at his sex. She went quite still for a moment.

"Well," he asked her, "what are you thinking?"

"It's… different."

He nodded.

"But not in a bad way. It would still, you know, do the job." She actually blushed.

He grinned. "Oh, yeah."

"And it's…"

"Please say lovely," he half-joked.

"I was going to say 'big.'

"Is that a good thing or a bad thing?"

"Oh, that's good." She wrapped her hand around it and gave it a few experimental strokes. Now it was his turn to toss his head back and gasp. "Very definitively good." She brought her other hand to touch the sac hanging down beneath, cupped it gently. "Humans have two of these," she mused.

He managed to swing his head back into its normal position and look at her through eyes heavy-lidded with lust. "There's four inside," he told her. "If you're gentle, you can feel them."

She was gentle, and she did feel them. "Interesting," she said. "Do you make more of, uh, you know?"

"I don't make any," he replied brokenly, trying to clear his mind enough to think coherently. "It's similar, but not the same, really. But I guess it would do the job all right."

"You guess?"

"Like I said, I've never done this with a human before."

There was a pause while her hands did magic to him, and his to her. "So if this was real," she started.

"Yes." His eyes met hers and the intensity pierced her. "Yes to everything you're thinking."

"Come here," she said, her voice quiet and thoughtful.

He settled his body over hers, resting the weight on his elbows, and cupping the sides of her breasts in his hands. He flicked his thumbs gently across her nipples, causing them to tighten. Rose reached down between them and found his length, and placed the end of it against her. She touched in to her wetness, and then used the desire-slicked tip to stimulate her wonderful little bud of nerves.

When he realized what she was doing he nearly finished right there, and had to jerk away. "Wait, Rose."

Her eyes opened wide for a second, and then a wicked gleam came into them. "You liked that, did you?"

"Oh, yeah," he panted. "A bit too much. Just give me a mo'."

She puckered up her lips and he kissed her, trying to show her with his mouth how much he needed her, how much he felt for her, how much he wanted to please her. She raised her legs slowly, caressing his legs as she did so, and then wrapped them around his waist. "I can't wait to feel you inside of me." she whispered against his lips. "It's gonna be so good, I just know it. I'll make you feel _so_ good."

He touched himself to her, feeling the heat and the wetness, and then he slipped inside easily. He was all the way in, and she was clutching him, her head thrown back, eyes shut, little noises coming from her. He watched her pulse in her throat, was hypnotized by it.

He drew back, so that he was almost out of her, and then pushed in again about an inch. She tried to raise her his to his, but he simply backed away, not letting her have more. Again he withdrew, and again he entered her just a little bit.

"Please," she whispered.

"Please what?" he continued to tease her, loving that she wanted this, and wanted it badly.

"You know."

He pushed in all the way this time, but slowly, and again and again. Just as she was starting to adjust to this rhythm, he pulled out and started teasing her again with just the tip.

"Please," she groaned. "Oh, Doctor, please!"

He entered her slowly again, to the hilt. "Is this what you want?"

"Harder, please!"

"Rose, look at me."

She opened her eyes and looked at him. He pulled out and them slammed into her. "Don't stop looking at me." She was so wet, so hot, so sweet. "Do you like this?"

"Oh, _yes_."

"Will you come for me?"

Her jaw clenched and then she gasped. Her hips ascended to meet his, thrust for thrust. "I want you to come," she managed to breath.

"Trust me, it's not long now." He sped up, and watched her breasts bob in time with their coupling. He pressed a kiss to her temple, where the hair was sweaty. "Come for me, Rose."

She obliged, arching back in that sweet and powerful, yet silent orgasm. The muscles of her sex clenched spasmodically around his shaft and that sensation was the end of him. He exploded inside her, deep inside her, his cheek pressed tightly to hers, her breasts crushed against his chest. He was groaning in incoherent elation with each pulse of pleasure that washed through him.

Spent, he tried not to collapse utterly on top of her, but his arms and legs were shaking terribly. He didn't want to leave her, she was too beautiful, but all good things, etc. He pulled out and subsided next to her, watching the rise and fall of her lovely breasts as she breathed deeply through parted lips. "Rose," he murmured, and kissed her shoulder.

"Hmm?"

"That was…"

"Mm-hmm," was her affirmative answer.

"Can we do it again?"

"Sleepy," she muttered.

The Doctor cursed himself for being an insensitive prat, but then remembered that she was already asleep. "But this is a dream," he tried to argue with her.

She didn't answer, and he knew that she wasn't going to the rest of the night. Even a mind gets exhausted, and she was only human. He smiled and kissed her shoulder, then moved up to her lips. "I wish I could tell you how I feel," he whispered to her unconscious form. The dreamland was beginning to disintegrate around him, going dim and peaceful.

The Doctor decided he wanted to be fully clothed, and then he was. He climbed down off the bed, which was starting to look more and more like the bed in her room in the TARDIS, and turned around to find the door that was an exit from her mind into his. He opened it and stepped through, and pulled it closed behind him.

End

Author's Note:

This is about as close as I can imagine the Doctor and Rose actually getting to doing any of this stuff. Please review; this is my first post ever, anywhere! If you like, I'll write more.


	2. Dream Lover

Dream Lover

By Fluffy Nabs

Doctor Who – Ninth Doctor/Rose PWOP

Rating: M

Rose was sitting at the bar in the kitchen of the TARDIS, idly stirring a cup of tea, not caring that the spoon was clinking melodically against the porcelain. Her other hand was occupied with cupping her chin, and she wasn't really looking at anything.

The Doctor came in, his face screwed up in irritation. "What's that clanking?" He asked.

She started and looked down at her cup. "Oh, sorry. Me stirring tea." She lifted it as if to say cheers, and sipped.

The irritation on his face turned to dismay. "A bag? You're making tea made from a bag?" He clucked like a mother hen and whisked the cup out of her hands.

"Hey!" Rose protested. "That's my tea."

He snorted. "That's not proper tea, and you know it. _Real_ tea doesn't come in bag."

"'S faster," she explained, half smiling at the way he was dashing madly about the kitchen, gathering tea-making essentials

In a few minutes it was steeping, and soon enough it was ready to drink. "Okay, here. Try this, and tell me it isn't better, I dare you."

Rose took the cup – a new one, not the one she had tainted with her bagged tea – and raised an eyebrow. She pursed her lips and blew on it to cool it, her eyes focused on the thin column of steam curling lazily from the top.

She didn't see the intense look that came into the Doctor's eyes as they watched her mouth. By the time she deemed it safe to drink, and sipped, her eyes trained on his face over the rim of the cup, his expression was smug and cheerful again, no trace of that former concentration. "Mmm," she nodded. "That's tasty."

"Not delicious?" He placed a broad, long-fingered hand over his chest. "I'm wounded."

"All right," Rose laughed. "It's delicious. Oh, yeah, far superior."

"Are you making fun of me?"

"Never!"

"You are making fun of me!"

She giggled and sipped again. "No, really, it's really… good."

"I make you tea fit for King Henry the VIII and all you can come up with is 'good?'" He looked around the kitchen as if expecting an audience before facing her again. "There's no refinement to you. It's just hopeless."

She stuck her tongue out at him. "That's part of what you love about me, and you know it."

"Your lack of good taste?"

"Can _you_ imagine a proper lady swinging like Tarzan to your rescue? Can you imagine a refined gentlewoman taking in stride the fact that she'd just been spit on by a small, blue, _naked_ alien?"

"You've got a point, you." He admitted. "But that doesn't mean you shouldn't be able to appreciate a really good cup of tea."

"Tell you what," she said. "Someday you can take me to high tea at a royal palace, and I'll wear a corset and tip my soup bowl away from me and everything. I'll even break out in a sophisticated upper-class accent, if you want."

"Now that I'd love to see," he teased, and they grinned at each other. He clapped his hands together and rubbed briskly. "Well, if you're done with your breakfast, where to next?"

She hopped down from the stool, "Lemme get dressed, and then we'll talk. I have a sort of… different request." She smiled tightly at him. "I'll be back in a bit; see you in the console room."

That 'day' the Doctor had taken her to see her father during various highlight points in his life. In the end, she'd held his hand as he'd died. They made it to the TARDIS, and once the coordinates had been set she let herself break down, and he put his arms about her shoulders and wanted to cry too, for her sake. Instead he'd made soft, nonsensical, comforting noises until she'd stopped.

It was strange, the different grieving processes that humans had. Most of them cried, although location and what company kept, if any, varied from individual to individual. Some of them got over grief quickly, some not for years. Some wanted to be left alone, and others wanted comfort. Many times, when faced with death, humans wanted to do drastic things to prove that they were still alive.

Like this moment, for example. She had cried for a long time, getting his coat wet and snotty, and finally calmed down. He still held her around the shoulders, and her arms encircled his rib cage. She was hiccoughing quietly, and finally sat up, slightly away from him.

"I've messed up your jacket," she sniffed.

"No worries, it'll wash."

She wiped her face, and he noticed fondly how splotchy it had gotten, great uneven red patches on her nose and cheeks and chin and neck, and how puffy her eyes were. Even like this he thought she was beautiful, though she'd never believe it if he told her. "You feel better?"

She nodded. "A little." She glanced quickly up at his face. "Thanks."

"Any time."

She cleared her throat, glanced at him again, clearly shy. "So…"

"Buttons?" He quipped, and she laughed wanly.

Her eyes, pools of deep feeling that beckoned him, ask a question. Her lips parted a little, and her breathing had quickened a tiniest bit. She leaned toward him the slightest fraction…

The Doctor stood up and patted her shoulder. "You look like you could use some sleep," he said. "What with all the sight-seeing we'd done today, you must have been up for nearly 24 hours, and that last bit there…"

"Yeah," she interrupted. "Yeah, you're right. I am kind of tuckered out." She looked away and stepped back from his hand on her shoulder. "See you tomorrow, then."

"Good night." He nodded to her as she exited the console room.

He knew what he was going to do even before she shut the door behind her.

He waited about half an hour, and tinkered about the console controls, not really doing anything, just waiting. Then he took to the corridors and went into his own bedroom.

He didn't often use it, really. He didn't need a lot of sleep, and before Rose showed up he'd taken to just collapsing wherever in the TARDIS he'd happened to be. Sometimes it was one of the library couches, or recliners, or sprawled over a desk somewhere. On one memorable occasion he'd fallen asleep in the garden, and woken to find himself covered in dew and crickets, and a spider spinning her web between his shoes.

His bedroom wasn't that grand at all, just a small room barely big enough for a bed, a mirror, and a closet. There were larger, more well appointed apartments in the TARDIS, of course – even he didn't know them all – but this one suited his needs just fine.

He stripped himself of his clothes and lay down on the bed, not bothering to cover up. The last time he'd done this unplanned, and had made rather a mess of himself. He wanted to be prepared this time.

He checked her through the connection they shared, and she was already fast asleep. When he eased through the door separating their minds, he found himself in a tangled melee of images and sounds, half-formed conversations and unrecognizable faces. For what seemed like a short eternity, he reeled back from the assault to his senses, until finally he saw an image of her, and he seized upon it.

He was standing with Rose in club, with music that was too loud and lights that were too dim, fractured by pulses from the disco ball overhead. She was wearing a dress that was too low and too short by half, which clung to her or flared out in just the right places. Her hair was piled high on her head, an artistically messy upsweep that accentuated her neck perfectly. She only wore one piece of jewelry, a sparkly little necklace that trailed down to rest in the valley between her breasts, screaming for the viewer to look further down. Her feet were encased, not in the trainers that he was so used to, but sleek, barely-there heels with laces that wound sinuously up her calves. The dress was red, the same color as the rose bud tucked into her hair.

Her hand slipped into his. "Come on, Doctor, this is a great song!"

He'd heard it before on platform one, being played from the 'iPod' Cassandra had brought to the gala. Bethany Sword, or some such performer. "You like this singer?"

"She's an utter cow," Rose told him. "But some of her songs are good to dance to. This one is." And she whirled away from him, the skirt lifting from her thighs to show almost everything.

Mickey was there, dancing with her, gyrating close to Rose's body, but not quite touching her. His hands were inches away from her skin, tracing her silhouette. He had that smarmy little smile on his smarmy little face, and Rose saw it and smiled back.

Suddenly the Doctor closed the distance between them, that ugly monster ripping apart his innards. He resisted the urge to tear Mickey's head off with his bare hands, again, and merely shoved the young man, hard, away from her. Mickey stumbled backwards into the crowd and didn't resurface.

"What'd you do that for?" She demanded indignantly. "I was dancing with him."

The Doctor seized her by the shoulders and backed her up, through the crowd, until she was braced against a decorative pillar. Young bodies spun around them, gyrating, jumping, shaking, undulating, feet stamping, hands clapping, eyes beckoning.

"What's the big idea?" She asked.

"You tell me, Rose. You brought us here. Is dancing what your really want from me?"

She was breathing hard, her eyes darting over his face, from lips to the flare of his nostrils to the dangerous gleam in his eyes. "Maybe sometimes, yeah. Maybe I just want you with me."

He inhaled deeply. He could smell the sweat and sex of young men and women all around him, but the strongest scent was Rose. "I'm here now." He kissed her hungrily. "You're here, and I'm here, and we're both alive. Let's _live_, Rose, you and me."

"Yes," she breathed. "I'm alive. I am." She kissed him. "I _am_." She kissed him again. "You and me." She kissed him once more, and the world was spinning.

The brilliant thing about dreaming was that you could shag someone in a club full of people, and it was just fantastic. The others simply twirled and danced, shimmied and swiveled, and the whole affair was unbelievably erotic.

The disco ball cast small specks of light across her pale skin that stood out like stars in the cosmos. He tried to kiss them as they passed, but kept missing, and ended up just kissing her everywhere, instead. He put his tongue to her throat and tasted the salty sweat there, and the lusty hormones in it. He pulled the dress from her shoulders and it fell, catching briefly on her nipples, then falling to her hips, where another push made it puddle to the floor beneath them. Her panties were red like the dress, and lacy. He could make out the curls of her dark hair underneath, and felt his need for her multiply. He put his hand to her panties, and tore them from her quite easily. He tossed them, and the disappeared into the crowd.

She kissed him again, and pressed herself against him, against the swelling in his jeans. She undid belt and button and fly, and shoved them down past his hips, just enough. Then with her back against the pillar and her hands grasping his shoulders, she wrapped a leg around his waist and lifted herself to meet him.

He let her take control, and she sank down onto him quickly, her gasp lost in the beat of the music. She rode him relentlessly, and it was almost all he could do to hold on.

He leaned forward and pressed kisses to her breasts. "Beautiful Rose," he sighed. "You're so beautiful."

"Doctor," she said, her voice high and thin and desperate. "Please touch me."

His hand immediately went to the place where they met, and his thumb found a slick nub nestled in the dark hair. He pressed down, making tiny circles, feeling the flesh swell and grow hotter than before. "Like this?"

"Yes," she hissed, her eyes closed and head thrown back as much as the pillar would allow. "Yes!"

He pressed hard, and faster, keeping the circles small. "Rose, darling, look at me."

Her eyes opened and met his.

"Do you feel that, Rose? Do you feel me in you, touching you?"

"Yes."

"I'm here with you now. You're safe, everything's all right." He leaned forward and kissed her again, not closing his eyes because she hadn't closed hers. "We're alive together, and isn't it incredible?"

She nodded, and he watched the blood flush her cheeks and her neck and her breasts. He knew she was getting closer. He increased the speed of his thumb, the strength of his thrusts to meet her hips as she descended, again and again, onto him.

"Come for me, Rose. It's all I want right now. I just want you to feel good."

Her eyes never left his eyes, and in a few more moments, she had her orgasm, her stomach clenching under his fingers, her womanly muscles clenching around him in waves, her whole body tensed and vibrating with the intensity of it, full lips parted in a silent scream of elation.

It was the most beautiful, desirable sight he'd ever seen, and he wasn't far behind her into pure ecstasy. He managed another three or four thrusts before exploding into her, emptying himself into this willing woman and burying his face in her neck while he cried her name over and over again.

When he regained his senses, he was still pinning her against the pillar, and she was kissing his hairline tenderly. "That's right," she was whispering. "We're here, aren't we? Together. It is incredible. It's genius, even. You're so beautiful."

He looked up at her. "Rose, you …"

She stopped him from saying more by kissing him. "Thank you. I really needed that."

He felt the smile spread over his face. "Not often a bloke gets thanked for having his wicked way with a woman."

She smiled, almost laughed. "I seem to recall having my way with _you_," she corrected.

"So you did." He kissed her adorable chin. "Well, then, you're welcome."

Then she did laugh.

He felt himself quite brilliant.

Rose unwrapped her legs from around his waist and nearly fell as they failed to support her weight. "Whoa!" She laughed again as he caught her. "That was a good job. You can always tell if it's good when she can't stand up afterward."

"You better stop that, I'll get a swelled head."

"Might go with your ears better."

He shook his head, the grin still in full force. "Rose Tyler."

"What?"

"You need rest."

"Mmm, that I do." She clung to his neck. "I want to go home."

He froze for an instant. "Home?"

"The TARDIS."

The Doctor crushed Rose to him. "Well, we are home."

She looked around. She was in her room, and behind her was her bed, big and soft and warm and inviting. "Look at that. That's convenient, that is."

He lowered her to the bed. "Rest now, Rose."

"'Kay." She snuggled under the comforter, her blonde hair streaming behind her on the pillow like silken gold.

"Good night."

"Night, Doctor. Thanks again."

He smiled. "Any time." He stood and waited until her breathing was deep and even, and the dreamland around him faded into serene darkness. He went to the door, and walked out, leaving her to her peace.

End


	3. Addicted

Addicted

By Fluffy Nabs

Doctor Who – Ninth Doctor/Rose PWOP

Rating: M

The trouble with getting a companion from primitive Earth (i.e. before alien contact) was that they were brought up to believe that their system was the only system, or at least the best one. Having to explain about Code Mauve to Rose while they were following the signal had been fun, but perhaps not the best use of their time, especially as the TARDIS had been bucking like a wild bull at that moment.

Also, they tended to wander off, dangle from barrage balloons several hundred feet over World War II London during air raids, and then get rescued by impossibly pretty young men who flirted with anything on two legs. Pretty young men who also had the worst habit of transporting you just as things were getting interesting between you and said primitive human.

"Captain" Jack Harkness had even managed to impress her with more than his looks, by risking his own life to save everyone else's. When Rose had asked him to rescue the ex-Time Agent, how could the last Time Lord turn down the pleading look in her eyes? Rose and her little boyfriends. The Doctor ruthlessly tried to smash the little monster in his gut that he was becoming so familiar with. It quieted, but only a little.

He'd walked in, dressed in that smart little World War II uniform, and had made the remark that so many of them tended to as they came into the TARDIS for the first time.

"Bigger on the inside."

Glowering at him (a look he'd practiced at, actually), the Doctor had shot back, "You'd better be."

And Jack had seemed to be taken aback, which made the Doctor feel nice and smug inside, and appeased the monster, but which prompted Rose to attempt to soothe Jack. "What the Doctor means, is that you may have this dance."

Well, he couldn't bloody well let _that_ happen, now could he? "Rose," he'd said, a familiar tune filling the air. "I've just remembered. I can dance. I can dance!" He'd danced in place and held his hand out to her.

"I think Captain Jack wanted to dance, Doctor."

"I'm sure he would Rose," and he hadn't stopped dancing, or taken his eyes from her face, beaming with the joy of the moment. The trick was to get her to laugh. "I'm absolutely certain; but who with?"

And she had chuckled, and they'd danced around the console. He'd kept his attention on her, watching her body language, gauging her emotions, and decided that she was happy. Everyone had lived, and it had been a good day, and now she was dancing with him. The Doctor had managed to hold on to her at one point in their dancing, and had dipped her. Her happy shout was music to him, and when he'd brought her back up, he'd looked over her shoulder at the man who still stood near the door watching them.

The Doctor made his face say, Rose is mine. See? I make her happy. You stay behind the line and we'll get along just fine.

Jack had understood.

After that, insincere flirtation aside, Jack had been a perfect gentleman to both of them the rest of the 'evening.'

Now Rose was starting to show signs of being tired.

"Why don't I show you to your room, Jack?" The Doctor said gallantly. "There are quite a few to chose from."

Jack saw Rose's tired smile and nodded. "Yeah, Doc, that'd be great."

They all proceeded to troop around the multitudinous corridors of the TARDIS, giving Jack the brief tour, and he finally chose his room. Happily, the Doctor noted that it was six corridors down and three left away from Rose's room, as well as on another level entirely. It was also surprisingly simple, if spacious, instead of the sex-oriented bachelor pad half-expected of him. No mirrors on the ceiling here.

Once Jack was settled, the Doctor escorted Rose to her room, bowed her in, and watched the door close between them. His mind whispered that it was only a physical door, and later he would open the other one.

Once in his room, naked and prone on his bed, he'd checked their connection again and again until he was sure she was asleep, and then done what had quickly become an addiction; he entered the mind of Rose Tyler.

She was waiting for him, still dressed in that faintly ridiculous Union Jack T-shirt. They were standing on a field of white that that stretched forever, but wasn't glaring to the eyes. She had her hands in the pockets of her sweatshirt, and a serious look in her eyes. "I was hoping you'd show up."

The Doctor raised his eyebrows. Could she have figured it out? "This is your dream, Rose. If you don't want me here, just say the word."

"No," she shook her head. "That's all right. I like it. Every time I dream one of these dreams I sleep a lot better." The tip of her tongue was caught between her teeth for a moment as she grinned. "And they're really hot."

He grinned back. "Can't tell you how happy hearing that makes me."

She held out a hand, which he took. "Will you dance with me? You said you remembered."

"You sure? No transportation to whisk us away this time."

She rolled her eyes and nodded. "I'm sure." Her voice lowered. "He has the _worst_ timing."

"I second that." He extended their joined hands to the side of their bodies, and gently placed her free hand over his shoulder before resting his own hand on her hip. "So what shall we dance?"

She grinned shyly at him. "This is a little embarrassing," she admitted.

"Don't be embarrassed around me. I'm the guy whose jacket you got snotty, remember?"

She snorted. "You have a point." Then she got serious. "No, really, though. Have you seen a musical called 'The Sound of Music?'"

"Love that one," he enthused. "Must have seen it a hundred times."

"Well, then you know the dance I mean."

"The Laendler waltz?"

"That's the one."

He tilted his head back and remembered the scene. "Bit romantic, that. Do you want period costume, and everything?"

She bit her lip and blushed. "Would you mind?"

"It's your dream, Rose. Do whatever makes you happy."

Suddenly she was dressed in a sweeping golden ball gown, off the shoulders, her hair in a French twist. There was a pale yellow rose tucked behind her ear. She wore elbow-length white gloves. Diamonds hung from her ears, and adorned her throat. They didn't shine half so brilliantly as her eyes.

"Look," she said, and stuck a toe out from her skirt in a pose more appropriate to a gymnast than a lady at court. "Glass slippers like Cinderella. Couldn't resist."

"Does that make me Prince Charming?"

"Well, the TARDIS isn't _exactly_ a palace," she mused, evidently trying not to smile at his mock-wounded look. "But it is pretty huge." She tilted her head back, and he knew that she was showing off her neck. "You can be the prince as long as I can stay out after midnight."

He pressed a kiss to that soft white skin. "Your wish is my command, m'lady."

"Well, I wish to see you in a tuxedo, à la Captain von Trapp."

And then he was, with a gold cummerbund to match her dress, and white gloves that he detested for the space they put between them. She looked him over, the gleam in her eyes not exactly innocent. "You do clean up nice," she said admiringly.

"You're not so bad yourself." He looked around them at the white expanse. "What about setting? Shouldn't we be in a ballroom, or on a garden terrace, or somewhere?"

"Yeah, right." Rose glanced about and then they were standing in said garden terrace, with moonlight almost as bright as the day lighting the scenery. The green leaves on the rose bushes looked black, but the white flowers glowed as if from within. She was a golden Rose amid white roses, and she was quite the loveliest thing there.

There was a gazebo.

"What is it with you and gazebos?" He asked, remembering her comment in 1869 Cardiff.

"They're romantic," she said. "Seems to fit, yeah?" She cocked her head. "Where's the music? You can't waltz if there's no music."

"Just remember the tune," he said. "It'll come."

The music started playing, filling the air from everywhere at once.

The Doctor drew her body closer to his, and they began that old folkdance.

There were many kinds of dances that humans did, but the waltz was perhaps one of the more graceful. A fluid duet, two partners keeping in step with each other, rising and falling in their steps like birds fluttering. And the story the dance told, this ancestor of all waltzes, was beautiful.

Two lovers meet and shyly encircle one another. First it is his move, then hers. See how she swishes her skirt to show her pretty legs? See how he claps to gain favor in her eye? She retreats, he follows, hands touch, faces turn demurely away. She spins for him, guided by his hand.

At last the Doctor was face to face with her, one hand clapped to hers above their heads, bodies nearly touching. It was at this point in the move that Maria ran away from her would-be lover, her cheeks burning. But Rose, although her blush was equally bright, had no intentions of running away, and the Doctor knew it.

The kiss was marvelous, soft and sweet and aching. When he'd had temporary fill of her lips, he made his way to her chin, and left up her jaw, where he lingered at her ear. She shivered and gasped and let her head drop back to his waiting hand. He then kissed all along her hairline, around to her other ear, where he elicited those splendid little noises again, the ones that sent spears of wanting straight through him. Then from there down her jaw again, to close the circle at her chin. One soft kiss to each closed eyelid, the tip of her nose, her lips again.

She was melting against him, in that way she had, where her body pressed against his and her head was thrown back to expose that expanse of creamy neck that he loved so to press his lips to. She weighed nothing in his arms when he picked her up and carried her to the gazebo; wherein lay a soft-looking bed with ample room for the two of them.

She wouldn't lie down, however, but knelt in front of him where he also knelt, her eyes searching. "I love dancing."

"I love making you happy."

Her breath caught, just before her smile bloomed. "You say the _nicest_ things."

The Doctor wiggled his eyebrows and leered in an over-the-top manner that turned her smile into giggles. "You do know that I have a secret agenda to see you naked, right?"

"That makes two of us," she shot back.

"Better with two." He held out his hand, and she placed her hand in his. One by one, he tugged the fingers on her glove, then pulled them from her arm slowly, letting the satin caress her skin. He repeated with the other one, and when he could see all of her fingers, he brought the hand to his lips and kissed it.

"Charming," she muttered, that sexy-half smile playing over her lips.

He looked at her from beneath his eyebrows, his lips still on her knuckles, and then without breaking eye contact he sucked her pinkie finger into this mouth and made a small miracle happen with his tongue.

She squealed, but didn't take her hand away. "I feel that down to my toes!"

He moved to the next finger and the next, his blue eyes never leaving her face. He watched as her lips parted and she began to breath deeply, slowly. Her posture changed, back arching to thrust her breasts outwards. That blush that he loved so much was beginning to spread from her cheeks, down her neck, and onto her breasts. He took his time to finish each finger, and then kissed his way up her arm.

"Voulez-vous coucher avec moi cet soir?" She whispered.

At her shoulder he paused. "What?"

"It's the only French I know," Rose told him. "It means –"

"'Will you sleep with me tonight?'" He translated. "Yeah, I know. How is it that that's the only French you know?"

"It's not what you think," she defended. He raised an eyebrow. "It's not! That's a phrase to a popular song. I'll play it for you later."

"In that case; yes."

"Huh?"

"In answer to your question."

"Oh. Well, good." She studied the face so close to hers. "What happened to the kissing? I definitely recall there being some kissing."

He returned his lips to her shoulder, her neck, her lips, her face, all the skin that could be reached while she still wore the dress. She kissed him, too, whenever one of his body parts came close enough. While he was worshipping her breasts where they rose above the bodice of her dress she was busy running her hands through his short hair, and across that spot beneath his ears that made him shiver.

When his hands started fumbling at the lacing to the back of her dress she stilled them and brought them around to the front of her, and placed them on her breasts. Then she smiled wickedly, and the dress was gone, and Rose knelt nude before him, a goddess clad only in moonlight and his hands.

"Your turn," she challenged.

The Doctor made himself naked, too, and they crashed together like waves in a storm.

Her hands were everywhere on him, the soft skin of her fingers leaving a trail of electricity wherever she touched. Down his back, cupping and gripping his butt – for quite a while, she did that – over his thighs, trailing across his stomach, feeling the contours of his chest. She reached down with both hands and one stroked his member while the other cupped his sac, gently fondling. His lust increased with each frisson of fingers over skin. He thought he might burst of desire for her.

For his part, he was busy exploring her mouth with his tongue. He counted her teeth (there were twenty-eight) and slipped across her tongue, which tasted sweet, like mangos or apricots or peaches or one of those other earth fruits. He felt the concave roof of her mouth, the fleshy nest of her tongue, and the delicate inner cheeks. When he started rhythmically thrusting his tongue between her lips, foreshadowing the actions yet to come, she moaned. The sound was remarkably arousing to him.

While her hands were occupied front and center, his were roaming across her back. There was this adorable little patch of sensitive skin at her waist, left side, that, whenever he skimmed his fingers across it, caused her to shiver and arch toward him. He wanted to find more of those places.

His arms were just long enough to slid from her deliciously curving bum to the slippery welcome of her sex. He teased her there, pushing a finger in just enough to get it wet, and then tracing her shape. He could feel those muscles clenching and she curved her back to give him better access.

The Doctor trailed the wetness he had collected from her center, toward her rear. His slick finger touched her anus, stroking the puckered tissue, but not pushing inward. She jumped at this and tossed her head back, breaking the kiss. Her mouth opened and she bucked against his hand.

"Nice?" He whispered the question close to her ear, stirring the blonde hair that escaped it's styling in wisps of spun gold to caress her face and neck.

She didn't answer, but continued to buck from the sensation. He smirked and slid his other hand around to the front, and gently pinched the bud of nerves that peeped from the surrounding chestnut curls.

Her reaction was instantaneous. She bowed backwards until her hands connected with the sheets on the bed, which she clutched as if for her life. Every muscle in her body tensed up, and if it hadn't been for the pressure of his hand at her pelvis, she would have fallen backwards. She held that posture, her toes curled, hands gripping with white knuckles the sheet of the bed behind her.

The Doctor stopped just long enough to lay her back on the sheets. He brought a small foot up and kissed the sole before positioning it where he wanted, to mirror its opposite. She lay on her back, legs spread wide, knees up, affording him the perfect view. The sight of it almost made him forget the plan and plunge into her as deeply as he could. Instead, he closed his eyes and said, "This is Rose's dream."

"What?" she asked, still breathing heavily from before.

"Hush, now. Just lay back and enjoy." The Doctor lowered himself to a lying position on his stomach, with his head poised close to her center. He looked at the red, glistening lips before him, nestled in their bed of dark curls. He kissed her where his fingers had pinched earlier. He heard her gasp, and her hands were on his head. She writhed at the touch.

While appreciating the sentiment all this spontaneous movement conveyed, it wasn't exactly the best way to do what he was doing. "Hold still, Rose." He curled his hands around her thighs, his forearms beneath her, palms up, trying to immobilize her hips.

She halted the motion. "Sorry. Not used to that."

"Shame on them, then. Everyone knows that this –" and he licked her from stem to stern "– is the very nicest thing you can do for a woman."

Apparently, from the way she was trying not to writhe and not quite succeeding, she agreed with him.

Her taste was incredible – probably the most delicious thing he'd ever had. He couldn't get enough of it. It was soon coating his face from nose to chin, and he loved it. Through experimentation he quickly realized that although she liked the sensation of his tongue inside her, what she _really_ enjoyed was having that lovely button pressed and flicked and gently nipped and sucked on over and over again. It wasn't long before she reached the peak of her orgasm, and fell into it with a silent scream, her body quivering like a plucked bowstring.

While she recovered, he kissed her inner thighs, not wanting to overload her senses. "You're beautiful," he whispered to her. "Gorgeous. The sexiest woman I've ever known."

"Doctor?" Her voice made him raise his eyes to her.

"Yeah?"

"I want to do that to you."

He slid upwards, his body touching hers the whole way. "I was really hoping you would say that." He stopped sliding when he felt the tip of his sex intersect with hers. "But can we save it for later, actually? I don't think I can last much longer, and I want to hold you close and be inside of you."

"After what you just did to me, you could ask for anything, and I would say yes."

He slid inside her, and the sensation of her heat and sweet slickness enveloping him was unbelievable. They both said "Oh," at the same time.

At first he moved within her slowly, trying to prolong the inevitable. She raised still-shaking legs and wrapped them around his waist and he found himself able to penetrate more deeply.

Something he'd read about once flitted through his mind: an ancient Chinese lovemaking rhythm. Four shallow strokes, one deep, then three shallow strokes and two deep, and so on. He found that counting helped to calm him somewhat.

One, two, three, four, FIVE. One, two, three, FOUR, FIVE. One, two, THREE, FOUR, FIVE… on and on it went, and Rose soon caught on, and adjusted her up thrusts to meet his down thrusts. He made it through four repetitions of the rhythm until the last five hard thrusts were too much, and he slammed into her as deeply as he could and emptied himself. A groan that was half her name, have a sob tore from his throat with each pulse of his orgasm.

Exhausted, he withdrew and collapsed next to her, one long arm enclosing her ribs, and his face nestled into her neck. "Bless the Chinese."

She burst out laughing. "What?"

"That rhythm," he explained. "Read it in one of their scrolls, once."

"Oh. Yeah, that was brilliant." She yawned, and he could feel the vibration in her throat against his forehead. "I love… that."

He went absolutely still where he was, not sure what to say. He could guess what she'd been about to say, and then hadn't. He lifted his head. Her eyes were closed, and the pulse in her neck was slow and steady, like her breathing. "Rose?"

"Mm-hmm?"

"I love… it, too."

Still with her eyes closed, she smiled. "I should have these dreams more often."

He watched as she fell further into sleep, as the gazebo and moonlit garden faded into still, tranquil darkness. He tucked her in, and left her alone on the bed. The door was behind him, but when he opened it, he stood for a long time just looking at her, one hand on the knob, before he could make himself leave.

END


	4. Even to the Edge of Doom

Even to the Edge of Doom

By Fluffy Nabs

Doctor Who – Ninth Doctor/Rose PWOP

Rating: M

The entire world was frozen, even the waves on the sea as they had tipped and frothed. When they'd first set foot on it, the expanse of ocean before them and the vast field of frigid permafrost behind had been breathtakingly beautiful, all light and sharp shadows and shades of blue and green and purple and white.

Standing alone on the ice-covered world, the TARDIS beckoned to them, the dark blue exterior standing starkly against the expanse of white snow. Inside was warmth and safety and home.

The three of them were running through the snow, kicking up drifts, slipping and falling, getting up to run again. Slowing down was not an option at this point.

The Doctor was hard behind Rose, and her scarf was flapping behind her, the end of it fluttering frantically in the wind of her passing. He reached out a hand to grab her. He was so close, and he urgently needed to catch her or all would be lost.

A snowball caught him in the temple like a small bomb of cold exploding and he was blinded. He couldn't see where he was going, and slipped. He fell to his stomach, sliding like a baseball player going for home base. When he finally stopped, he was coated with snow. The Doctor rolled onto his feet, looking around wildly for the perpetrator.

Jack's head whipped out of sight behind a mound of snow, and Rose was giggling somewhere over his left shoulder. The Doctor began running toward Jack's shelter, stooping while running to grab a handful of snow, and packing it into a round ball while he was still on the move. "You can't possibly win," he cried at the top of his lungs. "I'm too experienced to loose to you!"

Jack's head popped up again, and when he saw the Doctor coming for him, he sprang to his feet, three snowballs cradled in his left arm like an infant. He seized one and then threw it at the Doctor to cover his retreat. "Too old to catch me, you mean!" The Doctor spun like a top out of the way, unrelenting in his pursuit. He was aware of Rose packing snowballs frantically in the background.

The Doctor took his time to aim. Jack was dodging and weaving, trying to keep his moves erratic and unpredictable. However, the Doctor was a genius beyond mere human measure, and even if Jack didn't know his pattern, the Doctor had it figured out soon enough. Barring the possibility that Jack could accidentally slip on a patch of ice, he would be _there_ –

The snowball took Jack in the back of the neck, trickling beneath the olive green scarf he wore. With a shout, the ex-Time Agent stumbled, and it was all the opening the Doctor needed. He ploughed into Jack, tackling him to the ground.

During the ensuing struggle, one of Jack's snowballs was crushed. The Doctor grabbed a handful of loose snow and smashed it (gently, so as not to break his nose) into Jack's face, rubbing it in.

Jack shouted and lurched backward, eventually staggering to his feet. The Doctor had, by this time, backed a respectable distance away and was armed with a snowball of his own. The two men circled one another wearily, looking carefully for an opening, each armed with a single missile.

"You can't win," the Doctor said again.

"Oh, yeah?" Jack eyed him, mischief written on his cold-reddened face. "I've been up against worse odds," he said. "Maybe someday I'll tell you the story."

"You'll be too busy begging for – phlaugh!"

While they'd been posturing, Rose had been busy, and as soon as she could, she'd thrown a snowball at the Doctor, hitting him square in the face with it. Jack immediately burst into laughter, and was unprepared when she followed up with another missile that landed squarely on him. He turned incredulous eyes at her. "I thought it was humans against aliens?"

She shrugged. "Every man for himself!"

The Doctor and Jack exchanged glances. "I seem to have been betrayed," Jack stated matter-of-factly.

"Right, then. Boys against girls?"

They nodded together, and advanced towards her. Rose ran away screaming in laughter

It was a good day.

After the snowball fight, they retreated back into the TARDIS and had hot cocoa with marshmallows and peppermint sticks, and then later hot apple cider with graham crackers. Somewhere during Jack's story about his narrow escape from Lyjalistaurit IV Rose fell asleep, and alerted them to the fact by snoring rather cutely.

Jack chuckled at the sight of her, slouched down on the couch, head thrown back, mouth agape. "Looks like she's out," he observed. "I hope it wasn't my story telling."

"I've got it," said the Doctor. He gingerly pulled the empty cider mug from Rose's slack hand and placed it on the table. "Would you clean up?" he asked Jack.

"Yeah, sure."

The Doctor sat on the edge of the couch just next to Rose, slipped his left arm beneath her shoulders, and his right arm under her knees. He pulled her close, adjusted his grip and slowly stood, trying not to jostle her too much. Then he nodded to Jack, who was already gathering up their empty mugs and things. "Good night."

Jack wiggled his eyebrows. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do."

The Doctor managed to snort quietly. "Considering what you would do, that leaves me a lot of options."

Jack pointed a finger at him. "You… have a point there, Doctor. In that case --"

"Don't even finish that thought," the Doctor interrupted. "I'm going to put her in her bed where she'll sleep _alone_, and then I'm going to go straight away to my own bed, _alone_." He put his nose in the air haughtily. "Really, is that all you humans ever think about?"

"Yeah." Jack nodded in a matter-of-fact manner and started for the kitchen. "Pretty much."

"How any of you ever managed to develop higher mathematics is beyond me."

Jack winked over his shoulder. "Brainpower impresses the babes, Doc. Didn't you know that?"

The Doctor thought of Mickey the Idiot, and Adam the supposed genius; two pretty faces, and Jack makes three. He shook his head and left the console room.

Once in Rose's room, he laid her down on the bed, and she woke up a little bit, peering blearily at him through half-opened eyes. "What?" she asked, confused.

The Doctor smiled. "Good, you're awake. You just fell asleep on the couch, so I brought you in here. You might want to at least take off your shoes and jacket before going to sleep again."

"Right," she mumbled, and sat up just enough to shrug her jacket off. She then pushed it out of the way and toed off her shoes, which hit the floor with twin thuds.

The Doctor picked up her jacket from the floor and laid it over the back of a chair, and then pulled a blanket over her. She was already asleep again. He allowed himself to brush the hair back from her face and place a kiss on her cheek. "Sweet dreams, Rose."

He left the room.

She was waiting for him again, but this time she'd already filled in the backdrop.

He blinked. Of all the scenarios in the world, perhaps this one wasn't in the top ten he'd have guessed. Or the top 100, for that matter.

Rose sat alone at a table, dressed to the nines in Victorian fashion, complete with bun and jaunty hat set at an angle, white kid gloves with mother-of-pearl buttons, and coral brooch. The table was set for tea, amongst a small sea of similar tables, replete with well-to-do ladies and gentleman. Scattered amongst the gentry was the occasional small, brown-skinned child, waving a fan at the Europeans to ward off flies and heat.

"May I take your hat and coat, sir?"

The Doctor turned and noticed an Indian, dressed as a maitre de, waiting expectantly with hands outstretched. He removed his outer coat and his top hat and handed them off. "Thanks."

The man bowed himself away.

Rose caught his eye across the room and waved. He crossed and joined her at the table, looking around at the detail, something straight from a movie.

"What picture did you get this from?" He asked her.

She shrugged. "Bunch of 'em, probably. You don't like it?"

"Just not the most sterling example of human kindness, this particular era." He motioned to the small children.

Rose tipped her head. "Well, it's my dream, and that make me like God, right? So I've decided they all have fair wages and healthcare. And women's rights."

The Doctor smiled. "Well, then, I'll try to enjoy it." He eyed the table before him. "What's for tea, then?"

"Darjeeling, cucumber sandwiches… lady's fingers, and whatever else you want."

"I want popcorn."

She snorted a laugh. "Popcorn?"

"Yeah." He gestured to the scenery. "A good film needs popcorn."

A server arrived with a tray full of goodies, including a small bowl of popcorn. "Sir, madam." He carefully arranged them on the table and left.

The Doctor popped a few kernels in his mouth. "Delicious."

"I'll stick to my sandwiches," Rose said.

They munched in silence for a minute.

She looked so prim and proper sitting there sipping Darjeeling tea, not like the Rose he knew at all. He looked around at the setting, wondering if she was playing hard to get, or what. Suddenly, he grinned wickedly.

She caught his look. "What?"

"I was just wondering how long I should wait before I strip you naked and ravage you."

Their neighbor, an elderly matron, gasped and spilled her soup, then stood hastily and left, shooting them shocked glances.

Rose threw back her head and laughed. "You just love causing a scandal."

"What better place for a scandal than this setting?" The Doctor raised an eyebrow at her. "I know you, Rose, and sitting sedately to watch the jungle grow isn't what you're about."

She shook her head. "Tosser," she whispered.

"Would that turn you on?"

Now she was blushing. "Drink your tea, will you?"

The Doctor never stopped smiling, but he did as he was told. "Lovely weather we're having," he commented just a little too loudly.

Rose was looking down at her lady's fingers. "Terrific. I think it's butterfly season, or something."

"Yeah. Perhaps you're right."

"I'm always right. I'm God, remember?" Her grin was cheeky.

He grinned right back. "How shall I worship you, then?"

"Pay lip service, of course." She propped her elbow on the table and her cheek up on her hand, raising eyebrows expectantly.

Lip service she wanted, and lip service she would get.

"Let me not to the marriage of true minds  
Admit impediments. Love is not love  
Which alters when it alteration finds,  
Or bends with the remover to remove.  
Oh no, it is an ever-fixed mark  
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;  
It is the star to every wand'ring bark,  
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.  
Love's not time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks  
Within his bending sickle's compass come:  
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,  
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved,  
I never writ, nor no man ever loved."

"Shakespeare," she stated, her eyes twinkling.

"Yep. Too predictable?"

"Maybe. You met him?"

"Old Willie? Of course, who hasn't?"

"Me, for starters."

"I can take you there someday."

"I'd like that."

"Absolutely. All you have to do is remember to ask me when you wake up, and we'll be off!"

"I will, then." There was a pause, while she beamed at him.

"Bit hot, today, isn't it?"

Rose shrugged, and picked up her teacup again. "Oh, I don't know. I think the day's heat is just beginning, really."

Something touched his knee and he jumped.

Across the table, Rose innocently sipped away, the very image of a proper young lady, but under the table, hidden by the long tablecloth, her stocking-clad foot was traveling sinuously up his thigh.

She said something, and his eyes watched her lips moving. A small part of his brain made his mouth reply, but the majority of his intellect was concentrating on willing her foot to move just a bit farther up his leg…

The contact was unbelievably erotic. They were surrounded by prudish, stuffy, pedantic people, and Rose was secretly fondling his sex with her foot. He was growing harder every second, especially as she ran her big toe up and down his member. She stroked him through his suddenly too-tight trousers, her eyes were beckoning him, and the promise of her pouting red lips was driving him mad.

Suddenly it had gone on for too long, and he couldn't stand it any more. She thought Shakespeare was predictable, did she? He wondered if she would react favorably to what he was about to do. He hoped she would. The Doctor abruptly stood, grabbed the edge of the table, and flipped it sideways. People started running out of the room, and they were suddenly alone. Rose sat frozen in her chair, the shock on her face priceless.

The Doctor closed the distance between them with one step and dragged her out of the chair. He kissed her almost violently, plundering her mouth with his tongue. Her response was everything he'd hoped for; she stood on her tiptoes to meet his mouth. Her arms wound around his neck and her hands started running through his hair, down his neck, across his back. When he cupped her bum in his hands she curled into him and lifted one leg as far as her heavy skirt would allow and wrapped it around his leg.

He wrapped his arms around her waist and picked her up, breaking the kiss only long enough to stumble with her to a couch on the covered white porch that overlooked the jungle. He nearly fell onto it, her underneath, but she didn't seem to mind.

Rose undid his bow tie while he unpinned her merry little hat and spread her hair like a halo around her. Then he remembered they were wearing gloves. "I hate these things," he growled, and tore them off.

"I can sympathize," she said, removing her own.

"I just want to touch your skin," the Doctor breathed. He settled himself between her thighs – the couch was wide enough for both of them to lie comfortably on it, as all couches in dreams should be – and began kissing her face and neck while she unbuttoned his shirt.

A hand gripped his shoulder very hard, and he was wrenched from her. A large, red-faced man dressed in coattails and top hat was confronting him. His walrus mustaches huffed angrily. "I say, sir! What do you think you are doing? This is hardly appropriate behavior!"

The Doctor hauled back a fist and punched the man so hard that he staggered backwards, flipped over the railing, and disappeared, never to be seen again. He turned back to Rose. "Where were we?"

"You punched him!"

He straddled her. "Didn't you want me to?" He cushioned her breasts in his hands, feeling them through her clothes.

"I – I don't know," she admitted. Her breathing was getting heavy. "That's very action-hero of you."

"You love action." He bit very gently on her ear.

Rose bent her neck to allow him access, gasping, and the sound shot arrows of desire straight through him. "I think you're right," she sighed.

The Doctor became impatient to feel her skin, the heat and softness of it, and smell her unique scent. He slipped two fingers under her high-necked collar and pulled, and the dress tore away easily, like paper. He caressed the side of her body, feeling the fullness of her breast, the dip of her waist, the smooth curve of her hip, the taut muscle of her thigh. She quivered under his touch. His hand brushed the soft brown curls of her mound, and across her stomach to the turgid swelling of her breast, and felt her nipple harden in his palm. He never tired of seeing her like this, with her head thrown back, her lips parted, that delicious flush across cheeks and neck and heaving breasts. He loved that he made her feel like this, that it was he who gave her this gratification.

He looked at her. Her golden hair, tousled on the couch's cushion, framed her face. Her dilated eyes, deep and soft, glowed with hidden fire, and seemed full, as though they might spill over. Her lips trembled.

The Doctor leaned close to her face and kissed one eye closed, and then the other, but she opened them again. "Your turn," she said, and brought her hand to touch his chest underneath his unbuttoned shirt. He wished the clothes away, and she lay looking at him, the lust apparent on her face.

He lay down beside her, filling his eyes with the sight of her. Her hair, soft, rich, luxuriant; her eyes, brimming and expectant; her magnificent body; all of this beautiful woman, returning touch for touch, giving as well as taking pleasure. He kissed her again. Her mouth was parted, anticipating the touch of lips. She drew his seeking tongue in, and the slide of tongue against tongue was exquisite. He pulled back and smiled encouragement. He brought a rich lustrous strand of her hair to his lips, then rubbed his face in a thick, soft pile of her golden crown. He kissed her forehead, her eyelids, her cheeks, wanting to know all of her.

She found his ear, and her warm breath sent shivers of delight through him once more. She nibbled his earlobe, then suckled it. She found the sensitive places on his neck and throat that excited chills in him. Her small, soft hands explored him, felt the rough/smooth texture of his close-cropped dark hair, cupped his cheek and jaw, and traced the muscles of his shoulder and arm. When she reached his hand, she brought it to her mouth, kissed his palm, stroked each finger, and followed the inside camber of his arm.

The Doctor threw a leg over her two, and with her hip nestled against his sex, he began to rock against her. He craned his neck to kiss her closest breast, spiraling in to her nipple while his hand mimicked his mouth's movements on her other breast. Rose gasped and writhed beneath him, arching upwards to present herself to him better. Her hand snaked between their bodies and found his member, and closed about it. He moaned against her nipple. "Oh, Rose. Oh!"

Suddenly Rose withdrew her hand and pushed his arm away, sitting up. For an instant, the Doctor looked at her in confusion. "Sit up," she commanded.

He sat up, and let her guide him so that his back was propped against the back of the couch, and his hips were at the edge of it, so that he was in a fairly comfortable slouching position. Then Rose dropped a cushion on the ground at his feet and he couldn't stop the maniacal grin that sprang upon his face. "Is it my birthday?"

"Wait until you know what I'm going to do before you decide you only want this once a year," she admonished. She bent over to kiss his lips, opening her mouth and using her tongue. He responded ardently, loving the taste and texture of her. Then she kissed his neck, flicker her tongue lightly. She felt him shiver a bit, and she looked up at his passion filled face. The grin she flashed him let him know that she was aware of her effect on him, and quite pleased with herself about it.

She moved lower and made ticklish wet circles on his body, feeling her own excitement rising. It was almost torture for him, exquisite torture, part tickle and part searing stimulation. When she reached his navel, he couldn't stop himself. He put his hands on her head and gently pushed her lower until she felt his hot shaft on her cheek. She was breathing hard, and drawing, pulling sensations reached deep. Her tickling tongue was more than he could stand. He guided her head to his outstretched rigid organ. She glanced up at him.

Instead of going where he'd been wishing, she surprised him and moved even lower, opening her mouth wide and placing her wet, hot tongue on his sac. She gingerly suckled on it, trying hard to be gentle. The sensation made his whole body tense and shake.

Then she kissed his cock. At the contact, the Doctor's head went back and his eyes closed and his toes curled, and nothing else in world existed except for her mouth on him, and the pleasure she gave. He felt a moist warmth close over the end of his turgid sex, and then more than the end. He groaned something that might have been her name. Her tongue explored the smooth skin stretched tightly over the firm flesh beneath, probed the fissure, discovered the texture of the skin. She was enjoying her explorations, and felt her own throbbing inside. She circled his shape with her tongue and he called out her name again. When she moved her tongue faster the wetness came between her legs.

Rose put her right hand between her legs and touched herself. The sounds of his enjoyment and the movements he made, even his musky smell, all aroused her. She wanted to make him feel like he made her feel.

The Doctor felt suction, and moist warmth moving up and down. "Oh, Rose! Oh, woman! That feels so good… oh!"

She tried to discover how much she could hold, and she drew him in until she nearly gagged. His cries and moans encouraged her to try again and again and again, until he was rising to meet her

Then, sensing his need for her depths – and her own need as well – she rose and moved her leg over to straddle him, impaled herself on his throbbing member, and drew it into her. Her right hand was busy at the place where they joined, adding stimulation to the incredible sensations he was giving to her. She arched her back and felt herself coiling upwards toward glory as he penetrated deeply.

The Doctor looked up at her and gloried in the sight. The tropical sun behind her turned her hair into a golden nimbus. Her eyes were closed, her mouth open, and her face suffused with ecstasy. As she leaned back, her pert breasts jutted forward, her nipples beckoning to him. Her body, curved in all the right places, glistened in the light. He felt that he would burst with rapture.

Rose lifted up along his shaft, and came down as he pumped to meet her, and his breath caught. He felt a surge he couldn't have controlled if he'd tried. He cried out when she rose again. She pushed against him, felt the spurting wetness of ultimate splendor, as he shook with his own release.

The Doctor reached up and pulled her down, his mouth finding her nipple. After a while of drained contentment, Rose rolled off of him and curled up on the couch space that he wasn't taking. The Doctor got up, bent over to kiss her, then reached for a breast to nuzzle. He knelt on the cushion she'd used before, which allowed her to stretch out her legs, and stroked her hair as she dreamily gazed up at him. "You're magnificent," he told her.

She beamed sleepily. "I still can't believe you punched him."

He laughed. "Would you rather I left you?"

She shook her head. "Don't you dare!" Her hand reached up and grabbed an ear to pull him close enough to kiss.

He could taste himself, and that proof of what they'd just done filled him with an intense emotion. His eyes watered. "I cherish you," he said. "'Even to the edge of doom.'"

Something in her eyes darkened and intensified. "My Doctor."

"Yes."

She closed her eyes, pressing the lids together firmly for a minute. When she looked up at him again, the powerful feeling was gone, replaced with something more comfortable. "Sleepy," she murmured.

He kissed her on the forehead, and the tip of her nose. "Then sleep, Rose Tyler. Rest up for tomorrow's adventure, yeah?"

She nodded, and closed her eyes one last time.

As she fell deeper into unconsciousness, the sun set. He stayed as long as he could, with the starless sky behind and the encroaching, ever quieter jungle spreading inky tendrils of darkness until all that was left of the dream was Rose upon the couch. He made for himself a doorway to exit, and took his leave.

Author's Note:

Selections of this chapter, indicated by are borrowed heavily from Jane M. Auel's "The Valley of Horses." It's a terrific book, go read it, and all its companion novels.

End


	5. Flicker

Flicker

By Fluffy Nabs

Doctor Who – Ninth Doctor/Rose PWOP

Rating: M

Human beings were fragile creatures compared to many of the universe's life forms. They had a relatively short lifespan, succumbed to any number of diseases, and were quite easily killed with one solid blow to any number of specific regions of their bodies. It was a marvel that they'd reached so far, ascended so high, and lasted so long.

Especially when they had this burning desire to do really foolish things, like risk life and limb for an adrenaline rush.

The Doctor watched with his heart in his throat as Rose, strapped into a hang-glider contraption, stepped off the edge of a cliff.

Jack was already out there, soaring over the wide blue-green Plains of Galor, on Rindall, a planet that was famous for its low-gravity sports attractions. Over 700 years ago Rindall had been terraformed by space-faring humans into a pleasure planet that attracted hundreds of millions each year. One of the most popular attractions was hang gliding over the Plains of Galor, which had been planted thickly with Xed, a kind of plant that acted as a sort of scratchy marshmallow landing, except that if you landed on it, you weren't sticky afterwards, but only perhaps a bit scratched up on those parts of you that were exposed.

Now, the Doctor wasn't exactly the sort who liked to repose in the library, pipe in hand, and read about things that were happening outside. He'd always been the kind of person, no matter what face he was wearing, who liked to _live_ his life, to see things and breath them in, and touch them and take an active part. But usually things were happening that required participation. Things such as aliens invading a peaceful planet, or governments being overthrown, or somebody about to die that was supposed to live – or vice-versa. These things needed him to be there, in the thick of things, putting right what once went wrong.

What didn't need to be done was throwing ones self from a cliff with nothing between you and certain death but a dubious contraption of ultra light metal and impossibly thin fabric and a less-than-convincing ground cover of bushes.

The Doctor watched her out there, dipping and soaring on the breezes, her blonde hair lost over this great distance. His hands gripped the safety rails of the viewing area.

A small old woman shuffled up to him. "Was that your daughter I saw take off just now?" Her voice was thin and reedy. "My grandson Hayir is out there, too. I thought I'd stay behind with the rest of the old folks."

The Doctor looked around him. Sure enough, even though he was 900 and the rest of them were, at the most, 300 years old, he looked to be the youngest person in the room. He glanced again at Rose's gossamer contraption, spiraling upwards, miles away from him.

He stalked over to the attendant. "I'd like to go out," he growled.

After he was strapped in, and just before he dove over the edge, he thought he could hear the old woman laughing at him.

Later that day, after a (thankfully) safe landing, they'd gone to the beach, and the Doctor had spent a wonderful hour teaching Rose and Jack how to wind surf in the Brackish Ocean. It had been wonderful because he'd been doing two things that he loved – teaching eager, apt students, and being in close physical proximity to Rose. The Doctor necessarily got close to Jack, too, but the flirtatious human knew better than to try anything by this point.

The sight of Rose in a bathing suit made it very hard for the Doctor to concentrate on the fact that he couldn't actually touch her in more than a professional teacher/pupil manner. On one hand, he really wanted her to learn, and he didn't think that she'd be able to do that if he ran his hand up the soft curve of her hip like he wanted to, or kissed the nape of her neck where it was exposed under that adorable ponytail, or threw her down to the sand and shagged her senseless. She'd also be pretty outraged that he'd dare to do anything without her permission or express invitation.

Oh, how he wanted that invitation. He wanted her to open her arms to him in real life. He wanted to hold her close to him forever. He wanted to rest his head against her chest and listen to her heartbeat, and be lulled to sleep by the odd, single rhythm of it. He wanted to make her laugh all the time, and then kiss the laughter. He wanted her to look at him with a look meant only for him. He wanted to tell her, and show her, and share with her so many things. He wanted the real Rose, in the real world, really in his arms for everyone to see.

These dream meetings were driving him mad. He knew her fantasies, her imagination, her secret desires. He knew how she envisioned herself in her own mind. But would she really shiver if her kissed the juncture of throat and shoulder? Would she cry out if he cupped her bum in his hands and pulled her against his need? Would she flush from crown to breast in the glory of ecstatic carnal release? More than anything, the Doctor wanted to really know Rose, as she was, and as she would be, and as she would be _with him_.

He was trying to show her the correct posture for balancing on the wind surfing board when she ever so slightly brushed the side of breast against his forearm. She immediately blushed and muttered an apology, and avoided looking at him. The Doctor stepped away and summoned a smile from somewhere that he knew she would see right through if she would look at him. "Well, there you are. I think you're ready to try it on your own," he told her. "Go on, you go. Make sure you don't drown."

He watched her leave, and sank quickly onto their beach blanket, sitting in the shade of the umbrella. He pulled his knees up and rested his forearms across them, and watched the twitch and sway of her hips in that unreasonably erotic one-piece bathing suit she wore. You couldn't know that he had a hard-on unless you were standing directly behind him and looking straight down into his lap, and studying the dark folds of his old-fashioned bathing suit.

Like Jack was doing now. "I don't blame you, really. She does have an excellent bottom. And top. And all that in-between stuff."

"Will you kindly shove off?"

Jack stepped back, blue eyes dancing with unsuppressed mirth. "Want me to keep an eye on her?" He snickered.

"No, I don't."

"Well, every other man and half the women are. Better the devil you know…"

The Doctor glared up at him, his erection completely gone by now. "Do you really want to argue philosophy with me?" He stood up, managing to tower over the human. "I've sent more devils back to hell than you'd care to know, and anyone who harms her will shortly follow."

Jack held his hands up. "I wouldn't hurt a hair on her beautiful little head."

"That's right."

"You have got to just kiss her. All this unrequited sexual tension flying around is really getting to me."

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "I'm sure that you can find someone to help you with that particular dilemma."

Jack eyed him up and down. "Hey, Doc, can I buy you a drink?" He leered suggestively.

The Doctor extended his arm toward the Brackish Ocean. "Go."

"Woof!" Jack went, winking.

About forty-five minutes later he was completely buried in a sand sculpture, save his head, which was in place of the head of the mermaid that young girl and her brother were meticulously carving and building around him.

Rose and Jack came back from catching waves, both dripping and grinning from ear to ear upon the sight of their Doctor ensconced in such a manner.

"Nice seashells," giggled Rose.

Jack pointed to the left one. "I think that one needs to be a little bit bigger."

Maria dutifully added another double handful of sand and patted it into place. "Who are you?" She asked the question with dark-eyed solemnity.

Jack squatted and helped her to shape the grooves of the shell. "I'm Jack, and that's my fried Rose, and I can see you've already met the Doctor. What's your name?"

"Maria. I'm seven."

Rose sat near the doctor's head and started outlining flowing locks of hair in the sand. She looked at the boy. "Who are you, then?"

"Javier."

"How'd you meet the Doctor?" Rose smiled at him, and the boy fell in love.

He blushed. "Maria scraped her knee, and he fixed it."

Maria proudly displayed her bandaged knee. "It doesn't even hurt."

"Then we were going to make Mom into a sand mermaid, but she didn't want to, and the Doctor said we could make him into one." Javier intently drew another scale on the Doctor's fishy tail with his finger.

Maria piped in. "I'm going to marry him when I grow up."

They all laughed, even Maria.

Rose put her hand on his cheek, and then traced the line of his nose with her finger fondly. She grinned down at him. "You, always saving the day." She leaned down to kiss him on the cheek.

The Doctor held his breath, almost hypnotized, as her face drew near to his. He closed his eyes, savoring the passing fragments of seconds. Her warm, sweet breath feathered across his cheek, and then her lips were pressed where her sigh had been. He knew that if he turned his head, he could properly kiss her.

He kept quite still, even after the kiss. He felt the electric burning of her touch long after she'd withdrawn, after he'd been forced to destroy the children's sand sculpture in order to stand up and leave, after they'd gone back home to the TARDIS, after they'd said good night and retired to their respective bedrooms. The Doctor thought that even if he scrubbed the area with a pumice stone and strong soap, he would still feel her kiss. He never wanted to forget that wonderful sensation, that made his stomach swoop and rise again into his frantically beating hearts more powerfully than the hang gliding had done.

When he went through the door into her mind, he found himself in a cozy den, sitting quite comfortably in a plump chair before a merrily crackling fire. A small boy of about four or five sat on his lap, holding a book and reading ponderously. He had curly brown hair and blue eyes, and ears that stuck out, and if anything could be told at this age, he was going to be quite tall when fully grown.

"Merry… Chris… Christmas to all, and to all a good… nig… nig..."

"Night," prompted the Doctor.

"Oh, all right," said the boy. "And to all a good night." He looked up, his bright blue eyes serious. "Daddy, is it time to go to bed, now?"

A lump rose in his throat. The child had called him Daddy. "Only if you want Santa Clause to come."

The boy slid off his lap, the white and blue-striped pajamas slightly too long. "I hope he likes the cookies I made him." He flashed a grin that the Doctor had been looking at in the mirror for years, and turned to go.

"Uh, son," said the Doctor. "Would you fetch your mother for me?"

"Yeah, all right."

After the boy left, the Doctor stood up and studied this dream house of Rose's.

The room was spacious, but not to the point of losing coziness. There was the fireplace, and the aforementioned comfy chair, identical to another that flanked a matching sofa. The floor was heart pine, with a rich, soft rug underfoot. The occasional potted plant and vase were nice touches, but dwarfed by the enormous Christmas tree in one corner of the room, festooned with lights and ornaments, completed by a home made popcorn strand and a childish paper chain.

He walked to the mantle, looking at the names on the stockings: Mommy, Daddy, Allen, Susan. Susan, of all the names in the universe, she had to pick that one. He could understand the boy's name, after her father, of course.

He studied the pictures on the mantle.

The first picture was of him and Rose, on somebody's couch, laughing up at the camera. The second was of Rose, vastly pregnant, and him standing behind her, his arms wrapped protectively around her stomach as he kissed the nape of her neck. The third was of a sweaty, tired Rose in a hospital bed, and he was pressing his cheek to hers, both wearing triumphant, cheeky smiles, and she was holding a wrinkled, red, tiny baby in her arms. Another picture was of him at a park, with the boy, then about three years, perched on his shoulders. The last was of Rose, tenderly holding an infant in pink swaddling. The loving look on her face took his breath away.

He heard her footsteps padding softly through the plush carpet behind him, and he glanced over his shoulder at her. When she reached him, she placed his arm about her shoulders, and they stood together, looking at the pictures. "Penny," she said.

He smirked. "My thoughts cost at _least_ a quarter."

She giggled. "I'll pay you later. Spill."

The Doctor gestured to the photographs. "Is this really what you wanted?"

"A bit late to be thinking of that now, isn't it?"

"That's not what I -- I mean, I just want to know, Rose."

"Well, it's not like I gave anything up, is it?" She squeezed him. "Christmas on Blixos Three, the kids are gonna love that."

And suddenly, he was aware of the hum engines all around him, and the fact that there were no windows. He strode quickly to the front door of the house, and opened it, only to look out into a familiar, roundel-bedecked corridor. "We're on the TARDIS." He turned to look at her, a confused look on his face.

"What?" She asked, her head cocked to one side, eyebrows furrowed. "You hit your head or something?"

He closed the door. "No, I just…" The Doctor gathered her hands in his. "Rose, this is… impossible."

She smiled softly at him. "After traveling with you for -- how long, now? Twelve years? How can you tell me anything's impossible? I've seen too much to think that, now." She stepped into him, pressing her body against him. "Besides, you should have though of that before you impregnated me with your alien babies." She kissed his neck, and he closed his eyes, enraptured. "You're stuck with me. Ha!"

"Oh, Rose," he sighed, his heart breaking a little bit. "Someday you're going to leave me for this."

"What are you nattering on about?" Rose demanded as she kissed her way around his throat. "I told you a long time ago, I'm here for good." She pressed the palm of his hand to her chest, over the baby pink robe she wore, and he could feel her heart thumping strongly. "You don't have two hearts, you've got three. And so have I, you told me, right?" Her eyes searched his face. "Right?"

Slowly, he nodded. "Whatever happened to 'I don't do domestic?'"

She snorted. "You tell me."

He lowered his head and kissed her, and that was all the answer either of them needed.

Rose pulled back from him, a promise in her eyes, and walked to the fireplace to turn the dial that shut off the fire. Now only the lights on the Christmas tree lighted the room. She went to a chest against the wall and opened it, pulling out a large, fluffy blanket, which she spread on the floor at the foot of the tree. Getting the idea, the Doctor grabbed some pillows from various pieces of furniture around the room and tossed them down to the blanket as well.

Somewhere in the house a clock chimed midnight and he had to chuckle softly to himself that she would bother to keep time in a ship that could visit any time, anywhere.

"Happy Christmas," she said softly, and pulled the tie to her robe. It fell from her shoulders and pooled at her feet. She wasn't wearing anything underneath.

He took in the sight of her, standing in the dim multicolored light, her hair tumbled down over her shoulders and her eyes aglow with love and lust, and a feeling welled up in him that threatened to overflow. "Rose."

She stepped forward, reaching for the lapels of his jacket to push it off. The jumper soon followed, then trousers and pants, socks and shoes. She reached up to cup the back of his neck, and pulled him down for another kiss. He embraced her, and their bodies came together inevitably, as the wave to the shore.

After a while, the Doctor pulled back and kissed her temples. "Lay down," he pleaded. "I want to look at you."

They sank down onto the fluffy blanket, and she positioned a pillow behind her head. She was smiling at him, her full lips curving in that way she reserved especially for him. He found himself grinning, too.

The lights from the Christmas tree cast dappled pink and green and blue and yellow patterns on her body. Her hair, needing a touch-up at the roots at the moment, spread about her head like a crown of living gold. Her deep brown eyes were heavy-lidded with desire and trained on his face. Her skin felt so soft beneath his fingers that he couldn't help but to trace her thighs as he took the sight of her in.

There were differences in this dream Rose from the real Rose that slept in the TARDIS. This dream Rose had slightly heavier breasts, and the aureoles were darker and larger, more suited for nursing a babe. There were a very few thin white stretch marks radiating from her navel, and her tummy below it was a little softer and more rounded, suggesting a pregnancy or two. But she was still beautiful, and something in the knowledge that she wanted _his_ babies enough to dream about it filled him with wonder and a poignant, painful joy.

The Doctor bowed his head over her prone form, as if worshipping at an alter. "I don't deserve you," he whispered. Before she could protest he had leaned forward and kissed her. "You're so beautiful, and good, and curious, and kind. You're the kind of person someone could spend 900 years looking for and be lucky to find. In all that time I've never settled down, or wanted to, and then you come along, 19 years old, and change everything." For a few moments he stroked her hair, luxuriating in the soft silkiness of the strands as they slipped through his fingers. "You brought light back into my being, Rose. I don't deserve you." He kissed her again. "But I'm going to try to deserve you."

She made a quiet shushing noise, and reached up to trace his ears with her hands. "I don't want you to feel bad," she whispered. "Let me make love with you. I want to make you feel only good and happy." She kissed his nose, and the corners of his mouth, and then pressed her lips to his.

He drank her in, reveling in the taste and texture of her. Her mouth tasted like cool mint and hot chocolate. She explored the roof of his mouth, tickling his with her tongue, and he felt it to his fingertips.

Reminded of the fact that he did have fingertips, the Doctor used them to good effect, stroking the curved sides of her breasts. He began a spiral that circled ever inward to her nipple, and when it finally reached its destination, he was surprised to find it wet. He looked down in surprise to find a bead of milk. Without stopping to think about it, he stooped to lick it off.

He nearly came right there, confronted so absolutely by the primal evidence of her fertility and her dedication to him. The sweet taste of it, and the pebbled texture of her nipple filled his senses so much that he had to pull back for fear of erupting too soon -- before he had pleased her.

"Leave some for Susan," she teased.

His eyes darkened at the name, but he turned his head abruptly to the side, as if to dash the comment from his thoughts. "Tonight, right now, you're only mine."

Rose spread her legs for him, and he sank his body to rest between her sweet, hot thighs. The length of his hardness rested along her wet cleft and he rocked against it, but not yet penetrating.

"Is it safe?" He whispered his question into her ear, the knowledge that human women took about six weeks or so to heal from giving birth, and he had no idea how old their second baby was.

"You tell me, Doctor."

"If it hurts, I'll stop," he said. "I promise to be gentle."

He angled his hips so that the tip of his shaft rested gingerly at her entrance. He started to nibble at the juncture of her neck and shoulder, and delighted in her arching, gasping reaction. Rose was so _responsive_ to his touches. He felt incredibly full and hard. Gently, the Doctor nudged at her opening, and slid in incredibly easily, aided by the liberal natural lubricant she was secreting.

For a minute or two he kept his penetration very shallow, only the first inch or so going in. She kept trying to lift up her hips and get him to go deeper, but as much as he wanted to, he wouldn't, yet. He wanted this time to be better than anything she'd ever felt.

He bent himself almost awkwardly in order to tease her breasts with his mouth, occasionally, accidentally, coaxing a drop of milk from her nipples. Every gasp and shiver she made only urged him on.

"Doctor, please!"

He sank in another inch, pulled out, and sank to the same depth. "Is this okay?"

"Not enough," she panted.

He smiled against her collarbone. He tasted the sweat there, felt her pulse fluttering beneath his lips. He slowly moved down her body, kissing and sucking and licking at the skin he could reach with his mouth, and stroking what he couldn't reach with his long fingers.

Rose knew where he was headed, and spread her legs wider to receive him. He teased her for a while, caressing the sensitive skin of her inner thighs until her hips were lifted entirely from the blanket and she was moaning in frustration. To be merciful, he descended upon her clitoris with his lips and tongue.

He knew he was doing well when her legs clamped against his head. He reached up to pin her hips in place, and suckled on that beautiful little bundle of nerves. He alternated between sucking it into his mouth and flicking his tongue rapidly back and forth lightly, and laving his tongue across it slowly and with pressure, occasionally nibbling on it very gently, and swiping his tongue across her pink-surrounded opening to drink the ambrosia he found there.

"So sweet," she managed to gasp out, just before her body tensed up and her upper half lifted from the blanket, head thrown back. Although her orgasm was silent, it was powerful, and wracked her body with spasmodic paroxysms of pure pleasure. He watched her head toss backwards, and the muscles in her stomach clench and unclench. The light was too dim and multicolored to make out the lovely blush that usually spread across her face and bust, but he knew it was there, beneath the fine sheet of sweat that covered her.

As she recovered, the Doctor repositioned himself between her legs, teasing her entrance once more. She looked up into his face with something like adoration written across it. She reached between them and cupped his sac. "You always make me feel so good," she sighed. She lifted her face to kiss him. Then she switched from sac to cock, and positioned it. "Fill me," she whispered demandingly. "Make love to me, and don't stop until you've felt as good as you made me feel just now."

The Doctor obeyed, moving slowly into her until his pelvis pressed tightly to hers. Her inner muscles were still contracting slightly, and he felt the glorious gripping, wet pulse along his length. He pulled, just as slowly, out again. "All right?"

"Better than all right," she answered, lifting her hips to summon him back in.

It was slow and gentle, and he took the time to kiss her thoroughly the entire time. After quite a few minutes of the same agonizingly slow pace, her encouraging cries and moans persuaded him to pick up speed. Gradually, the speed and force of his thrusts increased, but he made himself stay gentle with her. She deserved it.

He was getting close, and Rose was grabbing onto his shoulders forcefully with her head thrown back. He could tell she was getting close to another orgasm by the way she kept holding her breath and then expelling it in almost frustrated, quiet little sighs. The Doctor shifted his weight to one arm, trying to keep the pace the same. He inserted his hand to the place where they joined and found her button, and moved his thumb rapidly across it.

Her mouth dropped open and her hips jerked uncontrollably, and he lost himself in the sensations of utter carnal gratification that washed over him.

The Doctor tried not to crush her when he lost all strength and collapsed on top of her afterward. But she brought her arms up to clasp him to her breast, and stroked his hair and ears and neck and face tenderly.

"I love you," she told him simply, quietly. "I wish there was a bigger word for what I feel than 'love'," she said.

He looked up at her. "There is in Gallifreyan."

"Tell me," she pleaded.

He did.

Her lips curled upwards and her eyes drifted slowly closed. "That's it, then. That's what I'm feeling for you."

He kissed her chin, her lips, her cheeks, her eyelids. He repeated the word to her, over and over, as she fell asleep.

It was only when the dream began to leisurely fade into the blackness of her subconscious that he remembered Susan. He grabbed a throw from one of the armchairs and wrapped it around his waist as he bolted upstairs, flying into a bedroom labeled, via painted wooden duck silhouette, "Susan." He dashed across the room and looked down into the cradle at a baby, perhaps three months old, with creamy pink and white skin, and a head of dark, curling hair. Ever so gently, the Doctor picked up the baby and cradled her. He placed on hand against her torso, and felt the rapid flicker of two hearts.

He placed a kiss against her exquisite, tiny forehead, and bowed his head, and wept.

End


	6. Knocking

Knocking

By Fluffy Nabs

Doctor Who – Ninth Doctor/Rose PWOP

Rating: M

The Doctor and Jack were kneeling elbow-to-elbow, tools in hand, examining some of the more delicate systems of the TARDIS. There were panels, wires, tools, and unidentifiable alien objects laying all about them.

"Okay," said Jack, "so the only way to fix the problem is to re-wire the entire thing?"

"Not necessarily," the Doctor said. "For starters, all of the secondary systems are still good. We could salvage those, and with some jiggery pokery, make them interface with the new primary system."

Jack nodded, and examined something that looked rather like moss. "At least the batteries are still in their prime. Nice and moist and smelling oh-so-sweet."

The Doctor wrinkled his nose. "If you think that smells sweet, I'd hate to smell what you consider rancid."

Jack laughed and nudged his hip.

"Oh, sorry, am I interrupting?" Rose's voice made the Doctor jump slightly, and he craned his neck over his shoulder, smacking into Jack, who was attempting to do the same thing.

There was a bit of awkward scrambling before Jack got out first. He bounced up to his feet like an uncoiling spring and deliberately invaded Rose's private space. He wiggled his eyebrows. "You could never interrupt, Rose."

She stepped back, smiling and shaking her head. "What's going on?"

The Doctor sat up on his heels. "Just tinkering. Boring stuff."

"Can I help?" Her young face was so bright and eager. Of course, she knew nothing about electronics, not to speak of the TARDIS, but she was willing, and of late the Doctor found it hard to deny her anything.

"Of course," he said. "You can hand us tools while we're shoulders-deep in the wiring, there."

"Do you make coffee?" Jack had knelt and was sorting bits and pieces into stacks that probably didn't make much sense to anyone but himself.

"Yeah," Rose nodded. "Two creams, two sugars, right?"

Jack nodded. "You got it." Then he reached for something that looked like it was right out of Star Trek and wriggled back to where he had been a moment ago. "Hey, Doc, what's this tangle of green wires do?"

The Doctor squirmed back into place beside Jack and took a look at the tangle.

Behind them, Rose giggled. "At least I can enjoy the view."

The Doctor felt himself blushing -- actually blushing -- while Jack gyrated his posterior in what he probably hoped was an enticing manner, occasionally, much to the Doctor's irritation, bumping into him.

To cover his embarrassment, the Doctor simply ignored her comment and went about explaining the tangle of green wires.

Luckily for him, the necessary repairs weren't complicated, and he was able to explain the situation to Jack, who quickly caught on, without having to devote too much of his attention to the matter. He was thinking of Rose's comment, turning the words over and over again in his mind. Which view had she been talking of? His or Jack's? Was she just teasing, or had she meant it?

They worked for an hour or so, getting tools handed to them by Rose, who was otherwise absorbed in reading "Dune," by Frank Herbert, until they couldn't do any more work without the new component. They gingerly extricated themselves, with Jack doing entirely more wiggling and bouncing and shaking of his booty than was strictly necessary, which set Rose off into a mad fit of giggles again.

The planet Ealjoka carried the parts they needed, and the three of them ventured forth to enjoy a bit of alien life. He'd landed the TARDIS in an out-of-the way alley, and they exited the alley onto what looked like an art fair. Squinting, the Doctor looked around, trying to orient himself to their position in the city, so that he knew where to go for the replacement parts they needed.

Rose wandered to the first booth on the street, and examined delicate glass-like wind chimes, just as much as the alien attending the display. Like all the people of Ealjoka, this alien was about 120 centimeters tall, willowy, with violet skin that was covered by short, down-like blond hair. The eyes were very large and teal colored, and the ears were pointed and set on top of the head, like a dog's. This one was a female, so slightly bigger than her male counterparts. She smiled at Rose, revealing sharp canines. "That one makes a very lovely music. You can ring it, if you want."

The Doctor came up to her elbow. "Would you rather stay here while Jack and I go for the parts," he asked. "We won't be more than an hour or so, and it's safe here."

"Can I buy something?"

The Doctor grimaced. "I haven't got any money."

Jack pulled from his pocket a small wallet, pink in color, adorned with flowers. "Doctor, Doctor, Doctor," he chided. "Whatever happened to 'Be prepared?'"

"Do I look like a Boy Scout to you?"

Rose accepted the wallet, and opened it to see a plastic card with alien numbers inscribed. "How much?"

Jack grinned. "How much you need?"

Rose grinned back. "I'll be sure not to blow it all on bubble gum."

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Are you two done flirting? Because I'd like to get the parts to my TARDIS, now."

"See ya," Rose waved goodbye and disappeared into the crowd. Well, she would have, if she wasn't half a meter taller than most of them.

Jack and the Doctor set off. Jack turned to him as they strode through the crowd. "How were you planning on getting the parts we need if you don't have money?"

The Doctor shrugged. "I used to play card games with the general manager of the plant. He still owes me quite a large sum."

"Ah." Jack eyed him sideways. "Remind me not to play poker with you."

They acquired the parts they needed, and a few they might need later on, and left the plant laden with the goods. They made it back to the art festival and started looking around for Rose.

They found her bending over a table, examining the delicate blown-glass insects that were on display at one booth. The Doctor got a good, long look at her rear end as they walked up to her, before Jack called out, "Now it's our turn to enjoy the view!"

Rose shot upright so quickly that her blood didn't have time to catch up for a second, and her face was ghastly pale. She took a deep breath as she recovered, and when the blood made it back, it brought friends.

Jack chuckled at her. "You're blushing? That's so cute! I should catch you in uncompromising positions more often."

The Doctor was studying her blush, for it was the first time since he'd met her that he'd seen it in person, "in the real world." It began in her cheeks, and spread outward, to cover her forehead, ears, and neck. From what he could see of her cleavage (not very much) it was there, too.

He turned quickly around as she said something snarky back to Jack, and listened to the two of them bickering while he pretended to study the art display behind him, and concentrated on willing his erection away.

The attendant at the booth, an elderly male with a baby on a carrier on his back, smiled knowingly at him. "Would you like to buy something for your lady friend?" He gestured to his wares, an interesting collection of photographs.

The Doctor picked one up, which was a spectacular view of a large plain, bordered by mountains, with two crescent moons hanging in the sunset-streaked sky. "Where's this?"

The vendor glanced down and smiled proudly. "That was one of the first pictures I took after I'd decided to take photography seriously. Not hard to make a good photograph out of such a beautiful scene, eh? Still, it's one of my favorites. That's on Pensit, in the Phyrill system. I was stationed there during my military duty in my youth."

"Pensit, in the Phyrill system," repeated the Doctor. "It's quite pretty. Unfortunately, I haven't got any money."

The vendor nodded understandingly. "Perhaps another time."

They nodded to each other, and the Doctor turned to find Rose and Jack waiting on him patiently, their argument done. He grinned at them, and in particular at the shopping bag Rose toted, and then led the way back to the TARDIS.

He and Jack finally began to finish the repairs, while Rose disappeared somewhere. At one point he was elbow-deep in wires and couldn't extricate himself. "Jack, would you grab that spanner and give it a few passes over these two wires I'm holding?"

Jack had grabbed said spanner, but took a little too long coming back. The Doctor looked over his shoulder awkwardly to find Jack contemplating his bum. "Excellent bottom," he said, and winked.

The Doctor scowled back at him. "Will you be serious?" He was exasperated beyond measure, and a little tired of all the ogling that had gone on that day.

"I am serious, Doctor. You have a _seriously_ excellent bottom."

"Spanner, Jack!"

Jack advanced, spanner in hand, and aimed it precisely at the wires. "You're just _dying_ to be kissed, I know it."

"What?"

Jack shook his head slowly. "If it was me you were dying to be kissed by, well, we both know it would have happened already." He turned off the spanner and watched the Doctor pull his arms from the wires and glare at him. "Rose is from a pretty wacky time period, Doc. She may think that she's very sexually advanced, but in her grandmother's time homosexuality was a forbidden fruit, and unwed mothers were scandalous. She's still influenced by that, even if she would deny it."

"What does any of this have to do with the price of tea in China?" The Doctor most definitely did not want to discuss this with Jack. Or anyone.

"All I'm saying, Doctor, is that she just might be waiting for you to make the first move."

The Doctor's face clouded over. "_Not_ gonna happen. Can we please drop it?"

"No, we can't. Why isn't it going to happen?"

The Doctor ground his teeth. "You're really annoying sometimes, you know that?"

Jack nodded matter-of-factly. "Sure, I know. Why isn't it going to happen?"

"I'd rather not talk about it."

"It might make you feel better. Why isn't it going --?"

"Jack!" The Doctor yelled, feeling his face flush. He leveled a glare at the man that had made others tremble. "Shove off, all right?"

Jack was unphased. "Sure, just as soon as you tell my why it isn't going to happen."

The Doctor brushed past him and headed for the door. His fists were clenched tightly.

Jack followed. "She's 19, Doc, and a very healthy young woman in all respects. She wants certain things, even if she won't tell you about them. I know and you know that she wants them from you. What's wrong with that?"

The Doctor kept walking, and increased his pace.

Jack kept up, relentless. "Look, she's waiting for you, but Rose isn't one to wait for too long. If you don't give her what she wants from you, she'll turn to someone else!"

The Doctor rounded on him. "Like you?" He was livid.

Jack was actually afraid of him for a second, and backed up three steps, his hands raised to fend him off. "I would never, not now. Not that I know that she loves you."

The Doctor froze, and the fury on his face slowly melted away. "That's not the point."

"Then what is the point?" Jack's voice was soft, now. "I'm your friend, Doc. I know I tease you sometimes, but none of that matters when it counts. You can tell me."

For a minute, the Doctor considered telling him. Jack was in earnest, and did want to help. He thought he was doing them a favor. He shook his head. "No, I can't. And I don't want to talk about it, all right?"

Jack studied him, and then finally nodded.

This time when the Doctor stalked away, Jack didn't follow.

That "evening" he paced up and down in his room, thinking about his conversation with Jack. He kept turning the words over and over again in his head, wondering if Jack was right. He was human, like Rose, so maybe because of that he understood her better. Perhaps Rose would only wait so long, and attach herself to someone who would provide her with what she wanted.

But what did she want? If she but asked, he would lay the universe itself at her feet. He would pluck the moon from the sky and hang it on a chain for her, if that's what she desired.

A twisting, ugly feeling in his gut arose at the thought of another man touching Rose, or providing for her in ways that he himself wouldn't. He squashed it down. He tried to, anyway.

Finally, after what seemed to him a long time, he felt via their psychic connection that Rose had fallen asleep. Instantly he laid himself down on the bed and closed his eyes and reached through the link to open the door into her mind.

She was waiting for him again, a smile on her face, wearing the same clothes that she'd been wearing that day. She was standing on a white, formless plain. "Hello," she said softly when she saw him.

"Rose, tell me what you want."

"Eh?"

"Out of life. What would it take to make you really happy?"

She smiled in a half-embarrassed manner and shrugged a shoulder. "I don't know. I feel pretty happy now."

The Doctor closed the distance between them and picked up her hands in his. "But why?"

"Well, because of… of how great life is. I mean," and she stuck her tongue out of the corner of her mouth, biting gently upon it as she thought for a second. "What other girl on Earth has seen the things I've seen? Done the stuff I've done? Gone traveling in an old blue box that's bigger on the inside, with a bloke what's got two hearts?"

He chuckled. "I could name a few."

She sobered. "Really? I… oh."

He looked at her crestfallen expression. "Well, Rose, I'm 900 years old. You only just now came along."

She gave her head a little shake. "Right. Of course. Well, why not?" She grinned sheepishly. "I should have thought."

The Doctor placed a hand on her cheek, feeling the warmth. Something tender came into his eyes as he gazed at her. "You're the only companion I've ever had," he said.

"But you just said…"

"No, no." He smiled wickedly now. "You're the only companion I've ever _had_." He placed emphasis on the last word, and wiggled his eyebrows for good effect.

"Oh!" She threw her head back and laughed.

He stooped spontaneously and placed a kiss on her bared neck. She shivered and sighed. "So where to this time, Rose?"

She wound her arms almost lazily about his neck and gazed at him from heavy-lidded eyes. "You choose, this time. Anywhere you want."

The photograph he'd seen earlier whisked across his mind, and then suddenly they were standing there, looking across the amber plains, over the purple mountains in the distance, and at the two hovering moons in the indigo sky, streaked with red clouds.

He wasn't looking at the scenery, though, he was looking at her face as she took it all in.

Rose's lips parted, and her eyes widened. She took a deep, quick breath as the beauty of the landscape was impressed upon her mind. Two spots of color rose in her cheeks and her eyes flashed brilliantly.

"Oh, Doctor," she sighed. "It's lovely."

He couldn't keep the silly grin from his face. "Maybe someday I'll take you here. You've got to ask, though."

"Where is 'here?'"

"Pensit, in the Phyrill system," he told her. "There was a photographer's booth at the art fair today. You may have seen the picture."

She lowered her eyebrows a little in thought. "Oh, maybe I did, then." She grinned up at him for a second before turning her eyes back to the view spread out before them. "I must have, to be dreaming it now, right?"

Feeling rather like he'd just swallowed something slimy, the Doctor plastered a fake smile on his face. "Yeah." She didn't notice, because she wasn't looking at him.

He felt like the slimiest worm that had ever existed, to be invading her mind like this, and unknowingly taking advantage of her baser hormonal instincts. What would she think of him if she knew that it was really he? What would she say? Would she slap him like her mum had? Would she leave?

"Rose."

"Hmm?"

"What if I told you that I'm psychic?"

She turned those great brown eyes of hers to his face. "And?"

"And what if I told you that you're not exactly dreaming? Not in the normal sense."

She frowned. "What do you mean?"

"What if I told you that because of my physic connection to you, I was able to project an incorporeal part of myself into your unconsciousness, and interact with you in your dreams? That I've wanted to be able to touch you for so long, but can't do it out there in the real universe because I'm a coward, and that I'm selfish enough to do it here, when you think it isn't real?"

She was silent for a long time, and her eyes spoke inscrutable volumes. Then she shrugged a little bit. "What if I told you that I don't care?"

He blinked rapidly. "What?"

"I said I don't care." She seemed to cast about for something to say. "Look, I know that if we ever did anything…physical in the real world, things would get seriously complicated." She kept her eyes on his steadily. "I'm not saying that I don't want that. I do. But I'm scared, too, that things will change. You don't do domestic."

He winced.

"And, Doctor, I don't want to ask too much from you. I really like sex, but I wouldn't want it to come between us, or change our friendship, you know?" She laughed a little. "These dreams I have, or that we're having together, if that's what's happening, I love 'em. They're so…" she trailed off and shivered. He could see goose pimples all over her skin. "They're really good." She bit her lip. "I mean, I don't always remember everything when I'm awake, but I do remember some of it." Rose stepped closer to him. "I want you, and if this is the only way I can have you, then that's how it is. I guess maybe I'm a little selfish, too."

He buried his hands in her hair and pulled her closer to him. He nuzzled his face in the soft, silken strands of it, and breathed her in. His eyes were stinging, and there was a clenching, heavy feeling in his chest.

Rose looked up at him, her eyes wide. "Are you crying?" Her voice was full of wonder.

The Doctor nodded.

She looked worried, now. "What's the matter? What'd I say?"

He grinned tremulously at her. "You're just brilliant, you know that? Here I go, confessing to you my transgressions, and you tell me it's all right. But is it? What if you woke up now, and I came to you in person, and told you all of this?"

She took his hand, and placed it on her cheek, and leaned into it. "I don't want to wake up right now." She moved her head back and forth, to glide the smooth downy skin of her cheek across his palm. "I want to lay here on the greenish-blue grass and make love with you under the light of the double moons."

"But --"

"Shh," she hushed. "No more talking about any of that, now. If you feel so guilty, then leave. Otherwise, stay." She took half a step back from him and, with molten desire in her eyes, began unbuttoning her shirt.

Each inch of skin exposed weakened his willpower. As she shrugged the blouse from her shoulders and let it fall to the ground behind her, the Doctor fell to his knees before her. He lifted his hands up, palms skyward, and they hovered over her skin, not touching. His eyes were on her face, searching. "I worship you," he whispered.

A slow grin spread across her lips and she ran her hands slowly through his hair.

The Doctor let himself touch her, let his fingers rest on the curve of her waist. He leaned forward and pressed his lips to the yielding skin beneath her navel. When he breathed in, it was Rose he was breathing in. Nothing had ever smelled so intoxicating before.

He kissed his way the short distance to the button of her jeans, and with trembling fingers, undid the fly. Slowly, his eyes taking in every inch of her, he pushed them down past hips and knees, and she stepped out of them. She was wearing flower-patterned panties. He pulled those off, too.

She was standing nude before him, bathed in the weird, wonderful light of two moons hanging in the velvet sky. She was luminous, her skin fairly glowed. The light, where it fell on her hair, turned it into silver, and her skin was like fine, warm, supple marble.

The Doctor pressed a kiss to the crease of her thigh, just left of the curly brown hair at the apex of her legs. He could smell her desire. The scent filled his senses, made him lightheaded, and sent the blood rushing to his cock. He kissed his way around the soft hairs while his fingers traced the inside of her thighs. He heard her sighing, and she shifted her stance so that her legs were open wider, giving him free access.

He glanced up at her, seeing the soft curve of her stomach, the proud jut of her lovely breasts, the smooth line of her neck. Her head was tilted backwards, and she wore an expression of utter contentment.

Something wet touched his hand where it was resting on her thigh and he looked down. Her juices were running down her leg. With a muffled cry of excitement and lust, the Doctor suddenly leaned forward and placed his tongue against her center. Rose cried out above him, and her hands tightened in his hair. He licked away the moisture, and then focused on manipulating the bundle of nerves that he loved so much.

Each time his tongue flicked over it, she arched toward him. When he took the pink bud of flesh into his mouth and sucked on it, she cried out. He soon had her writhing, and her legs were trembling where she stood. He looked up at her. Her eyes met his, puzzled at first as to why he should stop. When he began to tug her downward, she understood.

Rose lay on the blue-green grass that looked nearly black in the moonlight. She planted her feet on the ground, knees up, and spread her legs wide. The Doctor reached out and ran his hand from her knee to her center, loving the way her eyes drifted closed and her head tilted back. "You're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen," he told her.

He lay down on the grass, positioning his head between her thighs, and kissed the center of her pleasure again. He wanted to please her, and did his best to elicit the gasps and moans and little cries that he loved to hear so much.

When her body arched and quivered like a plucked bow string, and her legs clamped about his head in a carnal vise, he knew he'd brought her ultimate pleasure. After she relaxed once more, and had again opened her eyes, he slowly kissed his way up her body, lingering at her breasts. His clothes were conveniently gone by now.

Sliding himself inside her was the easiest thing in the world. "So sweet," she gasped, and he felt that he must be the luckiest being in the universe. Once he was fully submerged in her, he stopped. Rose twined her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist.

This feeling, resting in her, being wrapped in her embrace, his lips pressed to her temple where her pulse throbbed steadily and rapidly, nearly engulfed him. "I'm not quite worthy of you," he whispered.

"I'll decide that, thank you," she whispered back. Then she squeezed her inner muscles around his shaft and he convulsed in reaction.

Unable to resist it any longer, the Doctor began moving steadily in and out of her. The grasping, giving, wet warmth of her surrounded his shaft, sending pleasure through every nerve in his body. The soft slap of his ball sac as he moved against her added to the sensation. He could feel her heels pressing into his buttocks as she lifted her hips to meet him thrust for thrust.

Her full red lips were parted, and the Doctor turned his head to capture them with his own. She tasted like some kind of earth fruit. He'd noticed it before, but could never place which one. He raised his head and looked at her, never stilling the rhythmic pulsing of his hips. "What is it that you taste like?"

She pressed her lips together and then smiled dazzlingly. "Strawberry-mango lip gloss, probably."

The Doctor's tongue darted out and he licked her lips. She moaned beneath him. "That's it," he whispered against her mouth. "Now forever linked in my mind to the taste of kisses. The taste of Rose."

"Romantic," she accused, smiling.

"Have been my whole life." He could feel the sensation building, and he increased the pace of his thrusts. Her breasts bobbed up and down against his chest where they were pressed together, making a delicious friction.

Rose could tell that he was getting closer, because she began to contract her muscles around him, a firm squeeze every time he pulled out, a slippery welcome every time he pushed back in. Her head went back and her mouth fell open. The sight of her, of the blush that lingered on her cheeks and breasts, shot through him like an arrow, and suddenly his climax was upon him. "Rose," he gasped. He pushed into her as deeply as he could three, four, five times, and emptied himself into her.

Soon he lay sated, still deep within her, unwilling to move or break the beautiful moment. She trailed her fingers across his face.

"Thank you," she said.

He looked up at her. "For what?"

"For this." She looked out onto the landscape. "For all of this." She looked back at him. "For giving yourself to me."

He pressed his temple to hers. "How could I do anything less for you, Rose?"

She smiled lazily, her eyes half-closed. "You can't. Otherwise, you wouldn't be you."

He slipped out of her, and laid his palm flat on her stomach. "Are you sleepy?"

"Yeah."

He started rubbing small, gentle circles. "You sleep, then."

Her eyes were completely closed, now. "What about you?"

"I'll just take in the view," he told her, but he wasn't looking at the landscape; he was looking at her.

"Mmm." Rose sighed contentedly. Then her eyes popped open. "Oi."

"What?"

"I want to see how you leave."

His hand stilled. "What?"

"I mean, every time we finish, I drift off. Where do you go, if you're not something I'm dreaming up?"

"Oh, that." He resumed rubbing her tummy. "I just open a door back into myself, and walk through."

Rose half sat up. "Show me," she demanded.

He looked at her. There was something deadly serious in her expression. "All right, I will." He rubbed for another second or two. She continued to stare at him. "What? Right now?"

"Yeah, right now." She nudged his shoulder. "Not all of us live 900 years, you know. Come on, we haven't got all night."

He grinned at her. "Fair enough, my little mayfly." He stood, once more clothed in his customary uniform. "All I do is think of the place I want to be, and voila!" He made a grand flourish and a door was before him, standing alone in its frame on the side of the hill. Then he turned the knob and opened it. "Want a peek?"

She bounded up, and he was glad to see that she didn't bother to think of clothes. "Oh, yeah." She was next to him, and he could smell the scent of her hair, and the musk of their joining. She peered through the door.

The view was simple. There he lay, in his room in the TARDIS, prone on his bed, the lights dim. Rose seemed a little deflated. "I thought it'd be more…"

"What?" The Doctor raised an eyebrow.

"I don't know. More dramatic, or something. More complicated."

"Well, what do you want?" He shook his head a little bit at her. "I'm using up all of my imagination in here with you." He gestured through the doorway. "That's just my unconscious awareness of my physical condition. I actually am in my room, asleep on my bed."

She turned from the door. "Oh." Rose smiled a little. "I had a lovely time."

He snorted. "Are you getting rid of me, then?"

"Just a little."

"How much is a little?"

"A bit?"

"Exactly a bit?"

"Ish."

He nodded. "Well, now that that's been sorted out." Then he leaned forward and kissed her. "Ditto, by the way. About the lovely time."

She was radiant. "You're welcome any time, you know."

"Glad to hear it."

"Just, um, one thing, Doctor?"

"Anything."

Here Rose cast her eyes down. "Would it be too much if you…"

"If I what?" He chucked a finger under her chin, lifted her gaze to meet his. "Tell me, Rose."

"Knocked?"

For a long moment he could only stare at her. Then a smile that held not a little bitterness fled across his lips and was gone to be replaced by something more serious. "Of course. It's only polite."

"You're not, you know, angry or disappointed, or anything?"

He plastered a great big smile on his face that she saw through immediately. "I am, a little. But really, I've been a cad, carrying on like I have. I should have told you the first time, instead of dragging it out like this. You have every right to tell me to shove off and never return."

She shook her head. "I'm not… I don't want you to shove off. I just want to know when to expect you, is all."

He touched a strand of hair that trailed over her shoulder. "I'll knock."

She smiled. "I'll let you in."

He nodded. "Goodnight, Rose." He stepped through the door.

"Good night, Doctor. Sleep well."

"Don't let the bedbugs bite."

That earned a tiny giggle. Then she waved her fingers at him.

He pulled the door to.

End


	7. Distractions

Distractions

By Fluffy Nabs

Doctor Who – Ninth Doctor/Rose

Rating: M

Her flimsy excuse didn't fool him. After all, he'd been to countless worlds, met thousands of species, and never once needed a passport.

But nevertheless, seeing Mickey the Idiot did make her happy, and her exuberance was addictive. He was just satisfied to see her smiling so much. If putting up with her ex-boyfriend once in a while was what it took to see her eyes shine like stars, he would just have to squash that annoying little monster and get on with it, wouldn't he?

After all, Rose was a smart girl. In a short while, she would come to realize that boring human life in the early 21st century couldn't ever compare with ion storms in the Horse Head Nebula, or the triple sunrise over Denatonium IV, or the singing of the Pylene whales, or space walking over the rings of Lishaclovoymisitic. What were beans on toast when weighed against chocolates from the Anganesi moons?

He decided then and there to take her to Barcelona. Not the city, the planet. She would love the dogs. Plus, he would give her a piece of psychic paper. He and Jack had one apiece; it was about time she was equipped with more than mascara and her ready mind. Although, to be fair, most people didn't even have the latter.

It was a high that lasted all through the morning, and well into lunch. They were all sitting around a table in a little cafe, companionably enough, laughing stitches into their sides over one of Jack's stories. The Doctor had managed to corner Mickey into sitting as far from Rose as possible at a four-person table. He'd sat himself across from her, the better to observe her. She was happy, and while she looked smiles at Mickey, the same glance was given to him, and to Jack, and to the waitress that brought them their order. All was well in the world.

Until he saw the Lord Mayor on the front page of the newspaper, and it wasn't a lord, or a mayor, or even a human really at all, but an alien who, last time he had met her, was bent on destroying the world.

It was almost a welcome distraction. Once again, danger had found them, and he and Rose and Jack fell into the familiar pattern of teamwork that made them such fantastic companions. He'd rather have left Mickey back at the café, but one glance at Rose's determined face and the boy had girded up his loins and announced that he was going.

The Doctor had to give him credit. Mickey had seen these creatures in action before, and he wanted nothing more than a quiet, boring, and ordinary life. But here he was, coordinating cell phones, and marching off with the rest of them to face a large, green, and highly dangerous alien. Of course, it would have been slightly more impressive had Mickey managed to actually cover the exit he'd been assigned, instead of somehow lodging a tin bucket and some loose toilet paper on his foot.

"Pride" wasn't a good enough noun for the feeling that welled in him when Rose had said, "The Doctor's good with teleports." It was nice showing Mickey how things were done, especially in Rose's presence.

But now they were just waiting around for the TARDIS to fuel up, and Margaret was making the humans rather uncomfortable with all her talk about death and executioners and blood on people's hands. Mickey left, and Rose followed.

It took the Doctor all of two seconds to weigh the pros and cons of observing them via remote viewer screen. He decided to watch.

Mickey was standing not far away, watching the fountain. Rose meandered up to him, and for a few seconds Mickey tried to bluff his way into feeling better about taking an active part in a sentient being's demise. After a pause, though, the Doctor heard Rose say what he'd suspected all along.

"I didn't really need my passport."

Something in the Doctor's stomach roiled and churned at the smiles they gave one another, coy and shy and knowing.

"I been thinkin', you know," said Mickey, trying and failing to be casual about it. "We could… go have a drink. Have a pizza or something. Just you and me."

The Doctor held his breath for Rose's reply. The greenish blue light of the TARDIS made weird shadows on his face. From the corner of his eye he could see Jack glancing up at him from where he was working on some wiring.

"That'd be nice," assented Rose, still with that smile.

Mickey had buried his hands in his pockets for lack of something better to do with them, but seemed to have an awkward time with his body. "And, I mean, if the TARDIS can't leave 'til mornin', we could … go to a hotel? Spend the night? I -- I mean if you want to. I -- I've got some money."

The Doctor clenched his teeth together so firmly that his jaw ached. He gripped the edge of the console rather harder than he needed to. She couldn't say yes. Couldn't she?

"Okay," said the heartless woman. "Yeah." She wrinkled her nose in that smile, her dark eyes twinkling.

Mickey's relief was palpable, even over the monitor. "Really? Is that alright?"

Rose even giggled at him. "Yeah."

The Doctor, inside the TARDIS, wanted to pick up something heavy and throw it. Preferably at Mickey's idiotic head. Something primal in him was growling and frantic and shouting "Not her! She's mine! Back off, you stupid little ape!"

"Cool," said that smarmy excuse for a human. "Um, there's a couple of bars around here. We should give 'em a go."

Oh, sure, thought the Doctor bitterly. Get her liquored up, first. Nothing like a little alcohol to cloud her inhibitions, make her more likely to do things she normally wouldn't.

"Um, do you have to go and tell him?" Mickey asked her anxiously, and suspicion tinged his voice and face.

If she comes back, vowed the Doctor silently, I will think of an excuse to keep her here.

He watched her glance back over her shoulder at the TARDIS. For a second, he was looking right into her eyes, and he couldn't read the emotions hidden there. Then she said the words that felt like a white-hot dagger being thrust into his gut.

"It's none of his business."

He watched them walk away, hand in hand.

"So," said Jack, a little too casually. "What's on?"

The Doctor released his breath and unclenched his jaw and turned off the monitor. "Nothin'," he said. "Just --" he trailed off because he couldn't think of something to say. Images of Rose and Mickey tore through his head. It was unbearable.

It was her choice.

He'd lost her to a stupid human.

He needed something to do. The Doctor started aimlessly fiddling with various bits on the console. He needed a distraction.

"I gather it's not always like this, having to wait," said the Slitheen dressed up in a dead woman's skin.

The Doctor, had he believed in a power that created the universe, would have breathed thanks to it for the timely intervention.

"I'll bet you're always the first to leave, Doctor. Never mind the consequences, off you go. You butchered my family and then ran for the stars. Am I right? But not this time; at last you have consequences. How does it feel?"

It felt like a small, blonde human girl had reached into his chest and ripped out both his hearts and ground them to dust beneath her heels, smiling that coy, shy, knowing smile at Mickey the Idiot the whole time. But, oh, wait, Margaret was speaking of something else.

"I didn't butcher them," he said over his shoulder to her.

"Don't answer back," advised Jack. "That's what she wants."

Heedless, the Doctor threw himself into his little showdown with Margaret, and for the rest of the night, it was enough of a distraction.

Rose had come back, far too early to have "danced" with Mickey. Margaret was now an egg, and Mickey was gone, good riddance. The Doctor was relieved and anxious and excited and apprehensive all at once.

Rose went straight to her room afterwards, and the Doctor had set coordinates for Raxacoricofallapatorius. She came out to see the planet, and the sight of the burgundy seas had cheered her up considerably.

Jack was a few feet away from them down the beach, examining an interesting seashell, and the Doctor leaned toward her. "Rose? Are you alright?"

Her large brown eyes rose up to meet his gaze. She smiled, and it wasn't too forced. "Yeah, I'm good. Fine. What a view, eh?" Her hair was caught in the slight breeze, whipping tendrils across her face and about her neck.

He nodded, never taking his eyes off of her. Then, because he knew that it would be alright, he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and brought her closer to him as they walked barefoot on the beach, while green children bounded past, shrieking with laughter. "There's no one I'd rather share it with," he said sincerely.

And she'd smiled, and her eyes had brimmed with happy tears, and the universe was all right again.

That night the Doctor debated with himself. Should he go to her? On the one hand, that idiot had just upset her. He should leave her alone to gather her dignity. Or should he go to her to comfort her? If she had so seriously considered sleeping with that… person, perhaps he, the Doctor, should just take that as a subtle hint that she was done with their mental trysts. But what if it was only sex with the cretin that she wanted? After all, it's not like she wanted to settle down and pick out curtains with that creep, she was still gallivanting about the cosmos in the TARDIS, wasn't she?

The Doctor decided to leave her alone. The next move, the decision about which direction to take matters, would be up to her. He decided to pull a long night recalibrating the interstitial fluid packs in the TARDIS's gravity conductors. Nothing like slightly complicated work to take your mind off of unpleasant situations.

He was trying to decide whether to inject the fluid packs with synthetic protein or replace the solution altogether when his connection with Rose knocked. He froze, his eyes unfocused, and Jack, running scans on the fluid packs a few feet away from him, looked up.

"Doctor?"

The Doctor didn't hear him. Rose was knocking. The console room faded from his sight to be replaced with his own subconscious vision of the door between his and Rose's mind. He opened it up, and Rose was standing there, looking tragic. "Just a mo'," he told her. "I've got to get rid of the captain." Then he shut the door in her face and blinked back into reality.

Jack was looking at him oddly. "Are you okay? You kinda zoned out there for a minute."

"I'm fine. Can you handle this? I've got something else to do."

"Uh, yeah, sure, easy as pie." He really did love those 20th century expressions. "You coming back?"

"Not for a few hours." The Doctor put down his tools within Jack's easy reach and stood, brushing the dust from his hands. "Enjoy." He spun on his heel, and once out of the console room he sprinted down the corridor to his bedroom. It was moments before he wrenched open the mental door and once again faced Rose. "Hello."

This time she looked a bit contrite. "I'm sorry."

He stared at her. "What?"

"I almost -- today I almost slept with Mickey."

A muscle in his jaw jumped and the seconds ticked by, but they didn't break their gaze. "Yeah, I know. Your prerogative."

"I --" She stopped and gaped at him. "What? How do you know?"

"The monitor on the console. I saw the whole exchange."

"You were spying on me?" She pushed her way passed the door, indignation written across her face.

"Do come in," he deadpanned. "Just checking up, to make sure you were safe."

"I was with Mickey."

He raised an eyebrow at her, and she had the grace to look sheepish. "Right. Fine." She shook her head as if to dash away the idea. "Fine. Look, aren't you mad at me?"

One corner of his lip quirked up. "Why would I be mad at you, Rose? You're a healthy young human female with certain needs that need to be met by someone. I've no claim to you, no ownership, there were no promises made. You were right when you said it wasn't any of my business."

She wandered a little bit away from him and casually conjured up a couch to sink onto. The Doctor shut the door, his mind awhirl at this staggering development. Rose was in his mind, and had manipulated into being something that she had no rights, as a human, to be able to do in a Time Lord's psyche. "How did you do that?"

"I almost hoped that you'd…" she trailed off, and wasn't paying attention to him.

"How did you… what were you hoping?"

"How did I what?"

"What were you hoping?" He crossed his arms and stared down at her.

She shrugged. "It doesn't really matter, I guess. How did I what?"

He rolled his eyes and then sat on the couch. "How did you conjure this couch? You're in my mind."

"You do stuff like that all the time when you're in mine."

"Yeah, but you're human."

"Really? Didn't know that, thanks for pointing it out."

"No, Rose, you don't get it." He reached out and pinched her chin between thumb and forefinger, tilting her head this way and that. "I'm a Time Lord. My brain is vastly more complex than yours. Faster, stronger, smarter, more imaginative. You shouldn't be able to just waltz in here and conjure up couches. How did you do that?"

She shrugged. "I seen you do it loads of times. I took notes, I guess." She grinned. "Maybe you're just not all that."

"No, trust me, I am definitely all that." He considered her. "But you are… something else." He leaned close to her and began studying her face minutely. "Are you sure you're human?"

"You met my parents."

"True enough. Your mother ever abducted by aliens?"

"No!" She pushed him away. "And a year ago I would have considered you bonkers for suggesting it. So would my mum have." She raised an eyebrow, considering him. "Maybe you're losing touch in your old age."

He snorted. "Not likely." Some inscrutable emotion came over his face like a curtain dropping to the stage. "Rose, what were you hoping?"

She pressed her lips together, that lip-gloss-blotting expression that means she was a little embarrassed. "It's nothin', really. Kind of silly."

"I promise not to laugh."

She hunched over, her elbows on her knees, and rested her chin in her hands. Then she took a deep breath and covered her face. "I was kind of hoping that you would be a little jealous." Her voice was muffled, and her ears turned red.

Long moments went by while the doctor stared at her crimson ears. That inscrutable expression didn't waver, but was made harder by the compression of his lips into a tight, bloodless line.

"Rose."

She peeked at him from between her fingers, then hid her face again. "Sorry, Doctor."

"You don't have to be."

She shrugged. "It's really… I dunno. Very grammar school."

"Look at me, Rose."

She took a deep breath and then lifted her face to look at him. She shivered, but didn't look away.

"You don't know me, Rose. How can you want me?"

He looked so alien to her at that moment, so hard and unfathomable and strange. "You're trying to scare me. I won't _be_ scared. I want you."

Deliberately, that look on his face there the entire time, he reached out and pulled her around to face him. "I've seen horrors that would blast your soul. Done worse. You don't _know_ me."

"I love you."

The shock of hearing her say those words to him flooded onto his face and he gaped at her. "What?"

"Yeah, that's right! I love you. What are you gonna do about it, eh?" When he continued to gape at her, she smirked and grabbed the lapels of his jacket. "Come here, you." Rose pulled him to her and kissed him.

It was gentle and full of emotion, that kiss. "Rose," he sighed against her lips when they broke apart for breath. She'd told him that she loved him, before, but this was different. Before, she'd been having a fantasy about a possible future, with the two of them together on Christmas, in a house of their own, with two children they'd made together. Professing love in such a scenario was practically part of the script.

"You can't scare me off," she whispered. "You can't convince me that you're not good enough for me. You're stuck with me, because I love you." She lifted her eyes to his, and there was a force behind them, something powerful that made him draw a surprised breath. "I won't let you protect me like that, Doctor. You've shown me too much, taught me too much, that now I love you too much to give you up."

"I'm sorry, Rose. For doubting you."

A corner of her mouth turned up. "What was that word you said, once? The Gallifreyan word?" And she waited.

The Doctor reached toward her, let his hand trace the curve of her cheek, the pout of her lips. He said the word to her.

"Tell me what it means?" she asked.

"Love," he said softly. "But more. Love, and respect, and lust, and protectiveness, and possession, and joy, and… and connection deeper than you thought yourself possible of."

"That's what it is," she said. "That's what I feel for you."

He kissed her again, and again, and again, until they were both breathless and the tide of emotion swept over them, through them, surrounded them.

She pushed him back onto the couch, which was no longer a couch, but a canopied bed, complete with Egyptian cotton sheets and softer-than-down pillows, curtained by some diaphanous cloth that was silver moonshine and golden sunshine all at once. She straddled him, and they were suddenly naked together.

The Doctor looked up at her, glowing in the eerie light of the bed's curtains. She was the most beautiful woman he'd ever known, and he'd known a few. It wasn't just the fall of silken blonde hair, or the sensuous curve of neck or lip. Her beauty didn't depend only upon the well-formed breasts, the flat stomach with adorable navel indentation, or the sweet curve of her hips. He didn't love her only for those things. There was also the determination and love shining from those glorious chocolate eyes of hers. The caresses given to soothe and excite and convey feeling. The way her thighs gripped his hips as if to tell him that she would never let go of him, never, never, never. She was sincere, and curious, and bright, and funny, and deep, and full of concern for other beings, and these things added up to so much more than physical beauty alone. She cared about things, about people. About him.

She'd come into his life when he'd lost his people, his world, his confidence. At the time he'd been trying to slip into his old way of life, because that was all he had left then. He'd asked her to come with him, against his better judgment, and she'd said no, so he'd left. How many years had it been for him before he came back to her? How many decades? How many lives saved and not saved, but touched by him, yet leaving him untouched? How many dreams revolved around the silly human shop girl who had never stopped asking questions? So he'd gone back, and this time, she'd run to him.

He wanted her like he'd never wanted anything else in the Universe. He was terrified of these feelings, but unable to deny them any more.

Her body covered his, pressed into him, and he surrendered himself to her softness, to her caresses, to her care. She kissed his neck, his shoulders, down one arm to his hand, where she kissed each fingertip. Her hands explored the planes of his chest and stomach, and lower, to find him hard and ready. He gasped at the contact, and his eyes drifted shut.

"Doctor, open your eyes."

He did, and she was smiling at him.

"I love you," she said, and enveloped him.

His eyes never left hers, as they moved together. It was so intense, so lovely, so right, that he couldn't possibly have lasted long. When he came, his gaze was still locked to hers, and the world was only feeling and Rose's eyes and her voice telling him yes, that's it, everything is gonna be fine, we're together and that's all that matters, Doctor.

When he was spent, he reached up and grabbed her shoulders. "There's no going back, now," he told her.

"There never is," she whispered back. "Not even for us."

End


	8. Wolves and Ashes

Bad Wolf

By Fluffy Nabs

Doctor Who – Ninth Doctor/Rose

Rating: M

Author's note:

This is mostly just the last part of the last episode of the 2005 series. I used "The Shooting Scripts" as a reference for the dialogue. No naughty business in this one, but I had to put it in here, because it's too important to be skipped.

Kyoto 1336, pre-contact with Western civilization. The Japanese had advanced medicine, textile developments, and a society governed by samurai, the warrior class. No one in that land had ever seen people that looked like he and Rose and Jack. They'd been hailed as kitsune -- mischievous shape-changing fox spirits -- by some, and as devils by others. They'd been just in time to witness the beginning of the Ashikaga shogunate, which was to last another 237 years. As with all political upheavals, this one had been bloody.

But they'd made it back to the TARDIS like they always did, and they'd been laughing, recounting their adventure to one another.

Then the transmit beam, the Game Station, the Daleks, sweet Lynda, saving Rose from the Dalek warship, and the frantic race to build the Delta way.

They say in companionable silence, Rose stripping wires, and the Doctor lashing them together. Intent on her work, she said musingly, "S'pose…"

She didn't speak for so long that he looked up at her briefly. "What?" he asked, finally.

She shook her head slightly, eyes downcast, lips pressed together. "Nothing."

Now he paused and looked at her. "You said, 'suppose.'"

"No," Rose said. "I was just thinking… and, I mean, obviously you can't. But… you've got a time machine. Why can't you just go back to last week and warn them?"

He knew the question would come up sooner or later. "Soon as the TARDIS lands, in that second, I become part of events. I'm stuck in the timeline."

"Thought it was something like that," she said. She continued to strip wires, working her pen knife deftly.

He kept his hands busy, but he looked at her. "There's another thing the TARDIS could do." He had to offer her this chance, because losing her would be the end of him. "It could take us away. We could leave. Let history take its course, and we go to Marbella in 1989."

A knowing, secretive smile quirked her lips, and she looked up at him, absolute trust in her eyes. "Yeah, but you'd never do that."

"But you could ask," he said softly. His face bore expression of ineffable sadness and tender longing. "Never even occurred to you, did it?"

She averted her eyes, watching her busy hands. There was something like modesty in her expression. "Yeah, well… I'm just too good."

She was saying it out of self-deference, he knew. But he also knew that she was saying the truth. She was too good. She was one-in-a-trillion, a person who loved others so much, who had so much compassion in her heart that she never stopped for a moment to think of her self when the chips were down. There was rescuing to be done, and whether the situation demanded she swing by on an industrial chain or strip wires to build a deadly energy wave, she was going to do her best to save whoever she could.

He loved her for it, without reservation. The Doctor knew, then, what he had to do.

He tricked her back onto the TARDIS, activated Emergency Programme One, and sent her away from him forever. He knew he was going to die, finally and absolutely, but he couldn't fight knowing that she was in danger, as well.

She was supposed to have been kept safe. He'd sent her back to her mum and her boyfriend and her beans on toast. It would have worked. But he'd done something that he very rarely did, in all his 900 years; he'd underestimated her.

He'd been prepared to die at the Emperor's order, chin up, soul quiet for once. But then the noise started; the faint, familiar, ancient groan and wheeze of his wonderful ship. Horror overtook him. That his programming should have malfunctioned somehow and brought Rose back to him, to this time and place -- she _should_ have been _safe_! It was nearly more than he could bear.

The doors slammed inwards and light like a sun streamed through them, shining from the TARDIS's console, and from the woman that stepped through the doors.

The Doctor was awestruck. It was Rose, and something more. She was shining, radiant, like a goddess stepped down from heaven in all her terrible glory. The power blasting from her was palpable. It felt like heat and song and wisdom.

He was terrified, now. His awe had knocked him backwards and he crouched, looking up at her. Compared to this, the Daleks behind him were as nothing. "What did you do…?"

Rose spoke, and her voice carried within it a dreadful power and knowledge. "I looked into the TARDIS, and the TARDIS looked into me."

He could see the golden power swirling in her eyes, and he knew it for what it was. "You went deeper than that. You looked into the Time Vortex. Rose, no one's meant to see that!"

The Emperor Dalek shouted, his voice frantic. "This is the Abomination!" And one of the Daleks screamed the battle cry feared throughout the universe. "Exterminate!" It fired its deadly bolt of energy.

Rose stretched out her arm, palm out. The Dalek's death ray froze where it was and then reversed until it slid back into the gun, harmless.

He'd never imagined that this was possible. That she'd taken the Vortex into herself should have been impossible. "Rose," he said urgently, terrified of what the power must be doing to her body. "You've got to stop this. You've got to stop this now!"

"I am the Bad Wolf," she told him, her eyes aglow, the power surging like a storm at sea. "I create myself. I take the words…" Rose gestured, her hand sweeping across the company logo emblazoned so boldly. "I scatter them, in time and space. A message to lead myself here." The letters rose and spun, shot into the ether, and disappeared.

He had to make her see. "You've got the entire Vortex running through your head, you're gonna burn! Is that what you want?"

She looked at him, now, the power in her eyes staggering. "I want you safe. My Doctor. Protected from the false god."

"You cannot hurt me!" the Emperor screeched. "I am immortal!"

Her terrible gaze fixed on the Emperor, now. "You are tiny. I can see the whole of time and space. Every single atom of your existence." She turned, grace embodied, and held out her hand to the nearest Dalek. "And I divide them."

Almost gently it disintegrated into separate particles, suspended in the air.

"Everything must come to dust," she said. The Doctor heard sadness in her voice, saw her lips tremble. "All things.

The other Daleks started breaking down into motes of golden dust, too.

"Everything dies," Rose said. She spread her arms.

On the monitor the Doctor watched as his age-old enemies, all their space ships, and their leader turned into dust and faded out of existence. The Emperor's final scream of terror faded, too.

"The Time War ends," Rose said.

The Doctor was still on the floor, crouched and terrified. A blissful smile crossed her face. He had never seen anything so beautiful.

"That's it, Rose. You've done it, now let go, just stop --"

"How could I ever let this go?" He could see the strain beginning to show on her face as her all-too-human body was becoming overwhelmed by the energy. "I bring life!"

And that was it. His terror overwhelmed him. Terror that she would be consumed by the Vortex, and lost utterly. He stood. "But this is wrong!" He had to make her see, to give up the power, before it was too late. "You can't control life and death!"

"But I can," Rose contradicted. "The sun and the moon and the light and the dark." And suddenly her gaze was child-like, beseeching. "But why do they hurt?"

He looked at her tenderly, compassionately. "It's eating you alive. The power's gonna kill you. And it's my fault."

"But… I can see everything. All that is. All that was. All that ever could be."

Amazement surged through him and his hearts lurched. "That's what I see. All the time. And doesn't it drive you mad?"

She was coming back to herself, and beginning to feel the effects of the power surging through her body. "My head..."

"Come here," he murmured. He held out his hand. He could feel her trembling when she laid her hand in his.

"…it's killing me," she said, her voice cracking.

"I think you need a Doctor." He pulled her to him, blazing with light, and carefully, knowing full well that he might never get the chance to do this again, he kissed her. For a moment all he felt were her lips on his. Then he felt her pain and the power, and he began to take it away from her, and into himself. He drew the last particle of energy from her, taking it all into himself. He was calm. He had saved Rose, and that's what was important. For these few seconds he was as powerful as any legendary god.

The temptation was just a little bit too much. He mentally reached out to her, and healed her. She would not die today. And then he went deeper and the filaments of power touched the spiraling core of her being. When they withdrew again, he knew he was damned, and that there would be a price for his selfishness. It was just a second too long and the power burned him just a little too much. He released it in a breath, knowing that he would die. He didn't mind. Rose had saved them, and he had saved her. The death of his body was a small price to pay for her safety.

As the final molecule of power left him, the absence of the glorious light staggered him. But he recovered quickly, because he had to. Rose was on the floor where he'd lowered her, her blonde hair spilled like a halo around her head. He touched her face, then lifted her up and carried her back into the TARDIS.

He set coordinates and they left that place.

Rose blinked awake, confused, but herself again. "What happened?"

"You don't remember?" he asked. He'd hoped that something would remain.

"It's like… there was this singing."

So, she'd retained only the barest impressions, then. He smiled, bittersweet sadness underneath. "That's right," he joked. "I sang a song and the Daleks ran away!"

She held her head in her hand as she slowly stood. "I was at home," she said slowly, trying to piece it together. "No, I was in the TARDIS, then there was this _light_, and…" she paused, bit her lip, then shook her head. "I can't remember anything else."

He felt the burning in his body, and looked down at his hand to see it writhing over his skin, fully visible. "Rose Tyler," he said, letting the sadness he felt creep into his voice. "I was gonna take you to so many places. Barcelona! Not the city Barcelona, the planet Barcelona, you'd love it. Fantastic place, they've got dogs with no noses, imagine how many times a day you end up saying that joke. And it's still funny!"

She was smiling at his smile, uncomprehending of the imminent. "Then… why can't we go there?"

"Maybe you will," he quipped. "And maybe I will. But not like this."

She shook her head, peering at him from a fall of bleached hair. "You're not making sense."

"I might never make sense again!" The rush of impending death was making him giddy. "I might have two head. Or no head. Imagine me, with no head!" He sobered for a second. "And don't say that's an improvement. But it's a bit dodgy, this process. You never know what you're gonna get -- ahh!" The pain doubled him over.

He heard her gasp out, "What was that?" And she took a few steps toward him but he couldn't let that happen, couldn't allow her to be harmed.

"Stand back!" he cried. "Ohh, it's gonna be a big one!"

She was frightened, but she obeyed, clutching a pylon. "Doctor, tell me what's going on."

Always curious, his Rose. And he was ever the teacher. There wasn't much time, now. "I absorbed all the energy of the Time Vortex. And no one's meant to do that." He gasped and hugged himself. "Every cell in my body is dying."

Disbelief flooded her face. "But, can't you do something?"

"Yeah," he said. "I'm doing it now." He grimaced at the pain. "Ouch. Time Lords have got this little trick. Sort of a way of cheating death. Except…" and he pushed away the pain. He had to make her understand, had to prepare her. "It means I'm gonna change. And I won't see you again, not like this. Not with this daft old face. And before I go…"

She was crying. "Don't say that!"

"Rose," he interrupted. He had to tell her. "Before I go, I just want to tell you -- you were fantastic. Absolutely fantastic!" He meant it, too. "And do you know what?" He felt a rush of joy, realization sweeping over him, overriding the pain. "So was I."

A second later the roaring energy swept over him and light exploded from his skin, and he was born anew, as a phoenix born from fire.

The regenerative energy streamed away and faded. The Doctor blinked, and shook his head. "Right then," he said, taking in Rose, who looked scared and fascinated at the same time. "There we are." Best to get on with it and try to be as normal as possible. "Hello!" He noticed an odd sensation in his mouth and took a moment to run his tongue around his teeth. "Oh, new teeth, that's weird." He paused, and mentally adjusted to his bigger-than-before choppers. "Okay," he said, pushing on. "So, where was I? Oh, that's right!" He smiled at her, beaming pleasure and excitement. "Barcelona!"

.oOo.

His memories of what happened shortly after the regeneration were somewhat fuzzy. Aside from wishing Jackie and Mickey a Merry Christmas, and the discombobulated image of a frantically whirling, deadly Christmas tree, the most vivid memory he retained from before Jackie's miraculous tea revived him, was of Rose's disappointment.

Pity, rather. He'd wracked his brains and couldn't come up with a single memory at all of Rose putting him into Howard's pajamas. Now that would be a memory to savor, he thought, Rose undressing him.

Though, now that he really mulled it over, he supposed it might have been Jackie or Mickey who changed him, and if that was the case, then he was glad he couldn't remember.

But Rose's disappointment burned through him. "Can you change back?" She'd asked the question, and something inside of him had broken.

The Sycorax invasion was a tricky business, but in the end it had come out all right. And the very best part of it was that during the sword fight, as Rose had hovered at the edge of the battlefield with faithful Mickey and clever Harriet Jones with her right-hand man, his every sense had been attuned to the finest degree. He'd noticed everything. The quality of the light, the texture of the gritty sand interior and the space-worn exterior of the Sycorax ship, the sounds of they Sycoraxic language, harsh and slippery, the ragged breathing of the humans who waited for him to save them.

And the smells. Pungent earth, well-oiled machinery, cold sky smelling like snow-on-the-way, Sycorax excitement, human fear.

And Rose. Through all the smells and all the sounds, a part of his mind devoted itself to observing her every minute reaction.

His mind turned over the memories now. The way she'd been embarrassed and blushed when he'd wondered aloud what kind of man he was – and if he was sexy. Her reactions as he fought the Sycorax leader were particularly stirring.

First, the noises she'd made; catching breath, panting gasps, tiny groans and suppressed whimpers. Then, her smell; bitter fear, and heady excitement, and underpinning it all, the spicy, sweet, stimulating scent of sex. His Rose had been turned on by watching him in action, and the thought thrilled him to no end.

When he'd re-grown his hand, Rose, his quick-thinking, brilliant companion, had snatched a sword from her accompanying guard and tossed it toward him. "Doctor!" she'd shouted.

"So, I'm still the Doctor, then?" He'd asked, yelling across the distance.

"You'll get no argument from me," she'd yelled back, her face alight with happiness.

That was all he'd needed – someone to believe in him. Rose to believe in him, to recognize him despite the different face and the London accent and the new teeth. Joy had surged through him, and victory was assured.

A victory that was marred by clever, crafty, scared Harriet Jones, to be certain, but he'd soon taken care of that, too.

And Rose's mum, suddenly all solicitation and motherly fussing, had invited him to Christmas dinner. While they'd been cooking it, he'd been selecting his ensemble.

He chose it to suit Rose's taste. Something contemporary to her time, stylish and dashing. A suit, a long coat, a fun tie, and glasses – not because he needed them, but because he thought they made him look rather clever.

When he'd walked into Jackie's flat and done a small half-turn to show off his new duds, he knew he'd chosen well when Rose had smiled at him – that blinding, million-watt smile that made his heart leap (just the one heart, because the other was still recovering, and hadn't yet started beating again).

When Jackie's mate had called, told them to go outside, they'd run, not knowing what to expect, fearing the worst. Golden lights streaked through the night sky and fine white powder sifted down from the heavens, lit softly by the glow of the city.

"Oh, it's beautiful," Rose breathed, while around them humans picked the stuff up and compressed it together and let it sift through their fingers and tossed it about. "What are they?" she asked. "Meteors?"

"It's the spaceship," he told her, "Breaking up in the atmosphere." She stepped closer to him, concerned. "This isn't snow, it's ash."

She shifted nervously from foot to foot. "Okay, not so beautiful." Behind them, Mickey and Jackie edged closer together, looking about anxiously.

The Doctor looked up into the sky, witnessing the falling debris of Harriet Jones's murderous "defense" action. "This is a brand new planet Earth," he mused wonderingly. "No denying the existence of aliens, now. Everyone saw it." He glanced at her, and his next words were laden with meaning. "Everything's new."

She was fidgeting, brushing the ash from her hands. She wouldn't look at him. "And what about you?" She glanced quickly to him, then back at her hands. "What are you gonna do next?"

"You," she'd said, not "us." He prepared himself for the worst, a leaden feeling settling somewhere near his diaphragm. "Well," he stalled, and looked at his ship, covered in white ash. "Back to the TARDIS. Same old life."

She was biting her pinky nail apprehensively. Her dark brows were drawn together, her eyes wide. She removed the finger and lowered her hand slowly, apprehension etched across her face. "On your own?"

"Why? Don't you wanna come?" He braced himself, promised that if she said she wanted to stay, he'd be graceful.

"Well, yeah," she said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

For just a split second he didn't trust his ears. "Do you, though?"

"Yeah!" she'd said, a little too loudly.

"Well, I just thought…" he nodded his head to the side, as if to indicate something, perhaps the past. "… 'Cause I changed." She'd asked him if he could change back. She'd said she wanted him to.

She was happy now, she knew they both still wanted to travel together. "Yeah, I – I thought, 'cause you changed, you might not want me any more."

He couldn't stop smiling. "Oh, I'd love you to come!"

The happiness bloomed across her face, and all a-twitter she said, "Okay!" She'd laughed for pure joy. For a moment, they huffed in breathless laughter together. Everything was going to be all right.

Behind her, out of her line of sight, Jackie and Mickey wore identical crestfallen, resigned expressions. "You're never going to stay, are you?" asked Mickey, his eyes downcast, every line of his body radiating discontent.

Rose whirled to see him, her hair flying out. The Doctor's smile faded.

Though the Doctor couldn't see her face when she answered Mickey, he could hear the pity in her voice. "There's just so much out there," she explained. "So much to see. I've… got to."

Mickey smiled, trying to reassure her, though the Doctor knew he was having a hard time of it. "Yeah."

"Well," Jackie broke in. "I reckon you're mad." Her arms were crossed, defense against the chill wind and a broken heart. "Pair of you – it's like you go looking for trouble."

The Doctor trotted over the Rose's mother, hands in his suit pocket, wearing a reassuring smile. "Trouble's just the bits in between," he enthused. Taking a hand from his pocket he placed it on her shoulder and looked up at the sky. Compelled, she looked, too. "It's all waiting out there, Jackie. Everything's brand-new to me. All those planets, creatures and horizons – I haven't seen them, yet. Not with these eyes." He'd removed his hand, and stepped back to Rose, where he belonged. Shoulder-to-shoulder, he looked at her, his grin infectious. "And, it is gonna be --" he paused for good effect, his grin widening. "—fantastic."

He held out his hand. She looked at it, trepidation mixing with the joy and relief on her face. "Oh, it still give me the creeps," she explained, not taking it immediately. He just wiggled his fingers, and a moment later, her hand was enfolded in his, where it fit perfectly.

They both turned to look up at the sky again. "So," she said, curious and serious. She stepped closer and brushed some ash from his coat sleeve. "Where're we gonna go first?"

"Um," he said, and chose a random star. He pointed to it. "That way." Then he changed his mind. "No, hold on." He re-directed his finger, delighting in her scent and the her huffs of laugher. "That way."

"That way?" she asked, pointing in the same general direction, and only a few thousand light-years off.

He'd made an inquiring noise, studying her face intently.

"Yeah," she said, and looked at him. "That way."

Hand-in-hand with Rose, the Doctor knew everything was going to be all right.


	9. One Thousand Reasons

One Thousand Reasons

By Fluffy Nabs

Doctor Who – Tenth Doctor/Rose PWOP

Rating: M

The were back from New Earth and Rose was dozing on the couch in the console room. After setting them adrift in the Vortex, the Doctor gazed at her for a moment. The memory of her lips on his – even if they had been controlled by Cassandra's will – seared through him. He had to take a deep breath to calm himself.

He walked slowly to the couch, and sat on the edge next to her. She murmured sleepily, and opened her eyes briefly before closing them again and snuggling deeper into the couches' dilapidated upholstery.

He touched her face gently, imagining the festering boils and hideous deformities of the plague of illnesses marring her features. It could so easily have happened. He shuddered, and with an effort, put it out of his mind.

"Rose," he said softly.

"Mmm," she groaned. "Wha'iz'i'?"

He suppressed a laugh and her nearly incoherent query. "Rose, you need to sleep. You've had a long day."

She took a deep breath and slowly opened her eyes. "I could just sleep here," she murmured."

"Come on," he chided gently. "To bed with you."

She pouted.

"All right," he said. "Just this once, because I'm feeling gallant. But don't expect me to make this a regular thing." And leaning forward, he scooped her into his arms, one arm behind her knees and the other supporting her shoulders, with her head resting on his shoulder. As he stood, she slipped an arm around his neck, and buried her face in his neck. The feel of her breath against his skin made every hair on his body stand up. He took her to her room, drawing in her clean, unique scent with every inhalation.

When he laid her upon her mattress, and began to straighten, he looked at her face and saw that she was looking at him. "Are you awake enough to undress?" he asked.

A slow, sex grin spread across her lips, and he suddenly realized the double entendre. "Er, I mean --" he fumbled. "That is to say, ah, get ready for bed. Not that I want to undress you. I mean, not that I _don't_ want to undress you, I don't want you to think that. Oh! I – I -- That didn't come out right. Er --" he was blushing furiously.

She laughed, a rich sound deep in her throat, and he stopped babbling. "Doctor?"

"Yes, Rose?" His voice squeaked. Unbidden to his mind the sight of her face, flushed with desire, just after she'd kissed him, the pink blush reaching down that enticing V of flesh left bare by her shirt. He swallowed heavily.

"Hold still."

He froze, and she half-sat up in the bed. She reached her silky hands out and captured his face, before slowly bringing her lips to meet his. She kissed him, softly, sweetly, lingeringly. Fire spread from her lips and her hands into his body. The scent of her, the taste of her, the feel of her, they consumed him more completely than the fires of regeneration. When she pulled back, it was all he could do not to lean into her again.

He knew that just a few days ago, in his relative time line, he'd had a thousand and one Reasons Not to Kiss Rose. For some reason, he couldn't recall any of them; perhaps his regeneration had befuddled his mind. Perhaps it was just hormones. After a pause, he whispered, "What was that for?"

She smiled, and there was something predatory in it. "Just in case I'm ever possessed by another being and made to kiss you again, you now have a real kiss from me to compare it to."

"Oh?" His throat was so tight he could barely eke out the word.

"Nothing like the real thing, eh?"

He held his breath for a long moment, considering what to say, his eyes drawn to her lips, noticing the moisture there, and knowing that just a moment ago he'd been kissing her. "You know," he breathed, his eyelids heavy. "I think I might need a few more demonstrations. Just so that I have the full range of material for comparison."

She bit her lip, and grinned. "Oh, really?"

"Absolutely," he said, and settled himself carefully on the edge of her bed, bracing one arm on her other side as he leaned closer. "The sooner I'm able to tell if it's really you, or not, the sooner I can get you back."

"Mmm," she hummed, and he watched as she stuck her tongue out at the side of her mouth, just a tiny bit, and touched her teeth to it. "I think you're right."

"I'm always right," he told her seriously. "I'm the Doctor."

She laughed and lightly grasped the back of his neck. "You're so full of it," she said happily. She reclined, pulling gently, and he went willingly.

He was lying half on top of her, his left hip nudging her left hip, his torso slanted across hers. She buried a hand in his hair and was running her fingers through it again and again. He half-closed his eyes in bliss and sighed at the feeling. "That's wonderful," he groaned.

She didn't stop. With her other hand, she reached down and interlocked her fingers with his. "Doctor," she whispered.

"Yes, Rose?"

"Kiss me."

So he did.

He'd been traveling with her for quite a long time, more than a year by her reckoning. They'd hugged, and held hands, and exchanged smoldering looks and verbal innuendo. And sometimes, when she was dreaming, he joined her and there was nothing they didn't do together.

But those were dreams, and as fantastic as they were, they were nothing as compared to this.

Her right hand remained on his scalp and neck and face, while her left lightly stroked his right hand. He was hard – this body's first erection. It felt rather large, which pleased him for Rose's sake, and the tension curling in his belly was nearly overwhelming. They kissed and kissed and kissed. She tasted like toothpaste and mint-y dental floss and behind that like leftover Christmas dinner and tea. Deeper than all of those, was the flavor of her. He could taste her emotions, so many chemical reactions embedded in the soft flesh of her tongue and inner cheeks. Overriding everything was the heavy, sweet taste of lust.

He wondered if she tasted this good at that warm, wet spot between her thighs, and it was that thought that undid him. He gasped into her mouth and his body tensed and his sex swelled and spilled into his boxers and trousers. Over and over he convulsed with pleasure, groaning her name again and again.

After a minute, he recovered enough to open his eyes and look at her. She was gaping at him, her mouth slightly open, her eyes wide. She was bright pink from ears to breast, and he could feel the heat of her through all of their clothes.

"Sorry," he managed. "Bit excited, there. Haven't done this sort of thing for a while, you know. And, um, never in this body, of course." He grinned, embarrassed. "You just… you're so beautiful. You tasted so good." The Doctor swallowed, looking at her lips, her glistening tongue. "You're amazing. Sorry."

She bit her lip. She was breathing quite heavily.

"Sorry," he said again. "I've made a mess."

She shook her head. "That – I don't --" she stopped, swallowed, and tried again. "That was so hot."

He blinked. "What? Really?"

Rose nodded.

A smug grin stole over his face. "Rose Tyler, if you think that was hot, just you wait 'til you see my moves." He sprang from the bed, and he put out a hand to quickly forestall the disappointment on her face. "I'll be right back," he said, gesturing to the front of his pants where a wetness seeped through. "I'll just tidy this up. Don't move! Just – just stay right there." He bounced on the balls of his feet and then ran for the door. "I'll be right back!"

He was only gone for six minutes. It took him 46 seconds to run to his bedroom, 37 seconds to shed his clothes, 133 seconds to wipe himself clean, 25 seconds to locate and apply a cologne he thought she'd like, 73 seconds to find and don a simple robe (Howard's robe, actually) and slippers, and another 46 seconds to run back to her bedroom. He dashed through her door, catching himself on the frame, stopping short at the sight of her.

She was wearing a little nightie. It was made from soft, opaque pink cotton, and was little more than a glorified T-shirt. It said, "Princess" across the front in golden glittery appliqué. She'd brushed her hair into a glossy sheen and was standing – rather nervously – next to her bed.

"Hello," he said, rather breathlessly, due to his dashing about.

"Hello," she said back, also rather breathlessly. He wondered what she'd been doing while he'd been changing.

He walked fully into the room, his eyes on her. "You're so beautiful," he said.

She ducked her head, but glanced up at him through her eyelashes, a move she knew full well was devastatingly sexy. "You are, too."

"I'm beautiful? What happened to 'sort of brown?'" He was standing just before her, now, as close as he could be without actually touching her.

She grinned. "Brown is sexy."

"Like my suit?"

"Oh, yeah. Good choice, that suit."

"I knew it!" He crowed. "Gone are the days when you, Rose Tyler, can tease me about my fashion sense.

She almost timidly reached out a finger to brush his knuckles. Their fingers met and slid against each other. The soft, gliding friction of her skin brushing the back of his hand, his palm, and the very sensitive skin between his fingers was all it took to make his sex hard again. Rose, eyes drifted closed, was swaying slightly, focused on the sensation of touching him for the pure pleasure of it.

The Doctor reached up his free hand and ran it through her hair, glorying in the lustrous strands. She'd recently had it dyed and styled, cut slightly shorter than usual. He liked it. He closed the few inches between them and buries his face in her hair, breathing in the scent of chemicals and shampoo and Rose.

His body was pressed against hers, and she had stilled. He could feel her breasts brushing against his chest with every breath she took. She was breathing deeply and just a bit rapidly. He tilted her head back. "You smell so good."

She smiled. "You do, too. S'that cologne?"

He kissed her temple and hummed an assent. "Glad you like it." He mentally resolved to wear it every day. He kissed her forehead, then the tip of her nose, and then, finally, her lips.

Her free hand came to rest at his waist, the other still sensuously toying with his fingers. She kissed him back with a fervor that pleased him. When he touched his tongue to her lips, she parted them. He began slowly thrusting his tongue in and out of her mouth, sliding along her tongue lightly, sparking pleasure. Rose groaned and rocked against him.

His erection brushed against her stomach, and he wished fervently that there were no clothes between them. He broke the kiss, panting, eyes heavy-lidded, needing to touch her. The Doctor gently seized her shoulders and backed her to the bed. He pinned her there with his gaze, and then slowly pushed her back until she was lying prone. Her hair spilled around her head like golden strands of fine silk. His eyes strayed down, to where her breasts heaved as she drew breath. He could see them pulsating with the force of her heartbeat beneath her ribcage.

Rose tilted her head back, offering an excellent view of the smooth column of her neck, which he promptly swooped down to kiss. She gasped softly. "That's perfect. Oh! That feels… so… good…"

The Doctor kissed her in the same spot again, and then moved to a particularly sensitive area, just where her neck and shoulder met, to kiss and nibble there, loving the soft, mewling sounds she made. Through their clothes he ground his cock against her thigh.

She reached down between them, using both hands to undo his belt, and then she slid her hands over his waist, pushing his boxers and trousers down to his knees. The feel of her touching his bare skin was superbly sensual. Her hands roamed upwards, tracing the dips and ridges of his spare muscles. They slipped around this his back, and explored until they found his mole. She smiled up at him. "There it is! The famous mole." She licked her lips. "I love it."

"Me, too," he said. Emboldened by her action, lifted her shirt. She was wearing matching pink panties, the briefest of bikini bottoms. He could see the texture of her pubic hair beneath the thin, soft fabric. He paused to caress her through the barrier. She threw back her head and lifted her hips at his touch.

The Doctor lifted her shirt higher, exposing her breasts. Once it was gathered under her arms, she sat up and took it the rest of the way off. Once it was over her head, she looked down at him, and saw him for the first time.

She froze. He froze. For a long time they just looked at each other.

He, for one, was amazed at her beauty. Dumbfounded, even. At a loss for words. Speechless. She sat there in the soft light of the room, wearing nothing but a tiny pair of panties, and she smelled of lust and radiated heat. She was the most beautiful sight he'd ever seen. But her expression was inscrutable as she gazed down at him, at the one part of his body that was obviously inhuman.

He was beginning to think it must have been Mickey who put him into Howard's pajamas, after all.

He cleared his throat as quietly as he could. "Is something… wrong?"

She lifter her eyes to see his face, and saw the trepidation there. Instantly she smiled to dispel his fear, and shook her head. "Nothing's wrong, no! I just --" She stopped and let out a tremulous breath. "This is so new to me. You are. And… and that." She nodded toward his sex. "I've never… made love… with an alien, before."

His expression was one of tenderness. He moved to sit next to her on the bed. "Rose, you don't have to be afraid. It's still me."

"I know."

He reached out and touched her cheek. "We'll go as slowly as you want, and stop whenever you want. We won't do anything that you aren't prepared for, I promise."

She leaned into his caress. "I'm not afraid," she said. He believed her – there was no fear in her scent. Just a lot of lust, actually. "I don't want to do something wrong or rude or – or, I don't know, taboo." She let her breath out in a huff.

"Taboo?" He lifted his eyebrows. "Such as?"

"I don't know," she said. "Alien culture, alien taboos. You tell me."

He traced her jaw from ear to chin, and then touched the corner of her mouth with his thumb. "I think that as long as we're both enjoying ourselves, there's nothing taboo about what we do together."

She grinned, her tongue stuck in her teeth. Quickly, before it disappeared, he swooped down and kissed it. She responded instantly, pressing herself to him. And then she grabbed his hand, and placed it against her breast. The feel of her nipple hardening in his palm was exquisite. He broke from her mouth and kissed his way toward her breasts, was momentarily torn between the two, and decided on the right, since he was already holding the left. She lay back down, and he followed her, kneeling next to her.

While his right hand stroked her breast, fondled and pinched and rolled her nipple, and his mouth mirrored those actions, he put his left hand to good use and slid it slowly down her body until he was touching her through her panties.

Rose moaned and lifted her hips from the bed in a slow, rocking rhythm. She grabbed him by the ears and hauled him up her body. Her lips sought his once more, and he obliged happily, kissing her. While she wanted it deep and rough, he teased her, kissing her lightly, pulling back when she tried to demand more. When, finally, she accepted, he dragged his lips back and forth over hers until she was moaning, and then pressed more firmly against her. His tongue darted out and demanded entrance, and she let him in. The softly pebbled texture of her tongue sliding against his own was almost more than he could stand. He couldn't stop himself from kissing her more and more deeply. They were both gasping for air, trying to breath through their noses, finding it not enough.

He broke free, rested his forehead against hers. They panted frantically

"Can I touch you?" she whispered.

"Oh, please, yes!" The Doctor moved his hand back and forth over her panties, feeling the heat and the dampness through the thin fabric. He pressed his finger into the slit and moved in slowly up and down, pressing into the bud of nerves at its apex.

Rose raised her head and looked down at him, where he was pressed against her thigh. She reached out her hand and touched him, so lightly and delicately. He felt instantly on fire. Of its own volition his cock jumped, and she giggled a bit.

"Mind of its own," he said.

"Really?" She looked up at him, half-expecting him to confirm that a brain resided in his member.

"Er… no." He smiled. "Not really. Just an expression."

"Ah." She touched him again, and he struggled to hold still. When she wrapped her hand around it and started to stroke him up and down, he groaned. "That would give a whole new meaning to the phrase, 'thinking with your other head.'"

He laughed and kissed her again. She shifted her hip under his hand, and he suddenly remembered that he was supposed to be touching her. He resumed his motion; his fingers stroking her clit mirrored the movement of her hand on his cock. While his hand was busy, he worked his way down from her lips to her breast, and took a nipple into her mouth. She was writhing slowly, and making soft, gasping noises. Her hand on his sex, stroking, touching, was powerfully sweet. At that moment she could have asked him for anything and he would have done it.

"I want to feel you," he breathed, and looked up at her.

Her deep brown eyes met his, and the look of lust on her face made his testicals lift and tighten in anticipation of release. "Yeah," she whispered.

She helped him pull her panties down and off, and he looked down at her mound. Soft ringlets of dark brown hair, the same color as her eyebrows, hid a tiny pink treasure of nerves, and a slick tightness that nearly every cell in his body was screaming at him to enter.

The Doctor swallowed heavily. He could smell her arousal, the scent dominated the room. Slowly, he slipped a long finger into her body. She hissed in pleasure, and when he used his thumb to describe a short back-and-forth movement across her clit, she lifted her hips off the bed and groaned out loud. "Doctor!" she cried.

"Beautiful Rose," he murmured, and kissed her nearest nipple. He licked it, reveling in the taste. "So desirable."

"I want to feel you in me."

He pressed the finger that was inside of her up, trying to find the fabled G-spot. He didn't think he did find it, but she moaned all the same. "I am in you, Rose."

Her hands were running frantically through his hair again and again, straying as far down as she could over his neck and shoulders and back. "Not your finger," she managed to gasp out. "Your… thing."

He grinned. "Which thing would that be?" He couldn't resist teasing her.

"Your cock!" She was staring at him now, the lust joined by something fierce and demanding. "Fuck me, Doctor!"

Hearing the word trip out of her mouth was the most erotic sound he could think of. Without another word, he withdrew his finger and rolled on top of her. She reached between them and grabbed his sex in her hand, and guided it to the appropriate place while she lifted her hips.

He pushed in, and Time stopped. All that existed in the Universe was Rose beneath him and the sensation of her body enveloping his. She started moving her hips while her hands glided over his skin, touching his face, his chest, his arms, his stomach, brushing his pubic hair. He pulled out a bit, and pushed into her again, hard enough to make her body move and her breasts bounce. It was so sexy he did it again, and again, and again.

The Doctor couldn't tear his eyes off of Rose beneath him, flushed and sweaty and bouncing and writhing. With every thrust she was making these little, high-pitched sounds that he could feel in his loins. He knew he couldn't last much longer. "Touch yourself," he managed to gasp.

Her hand flew down to where they joined, and he watched while she stimulated her clit. The sight was so unbelievably erotic. When she stopped making noises he began driving into her faster and harder. He was close but he wanted to watch her finish. Suddenly she drew in a deep breath and held it and her body arched upwards. Her hips began bucking frantically, her legs shuddering. Her mouth opened in a soundless scream while her eyes squeezed shut.

The Doctor, seeing her orgasm so beautifully, couldn't hold it back any longer. Three more thrusts, and he spilled his seed into her. He wouldn't let his eyes close, because he didn't want to stop looking at her. The pleasure welled through him and overtook him, and he was vaguely aware that he was moaning her name again and again with each pulse of his orgasm.

When the last wave passed over him, and he found that he still existed, after all, the Doctor looked up at Rose. The look on her face was indescribably, utterly adoring.

"You're beautiful," he told her, and disengaged, then shifted his body so that he was laying only half on top of her.

"Doctor, I --" suddenly she stopped and averted her gaze. After a moment she looked at him again. "I need to know. Was this… a one-time thing?"

He gaped. "One-time thing?" His mind raced through all the possible reasons she could be asking. "I…" he stopped, swallowed. "Do you want it to be a one-time thing?" If she said yes, he would simply die, he knew it. A small part of him wondered if she was aware of the absolute power she held over him.

"No!" She shook her head, and he allowed himself to breath again. "Doctor, all this time we've been traveling together, and you never, ever gave an indication that we could be intimate like this." She shrugged and bit her lip for a second. "We flirted, but whenever I tried to get close, you -- you put this wall up. I thought maybe you didn't want me."

"Oh, Rose, no," he said softly. "I didn't accept your… your invitation because I was trying to protect you."

"From what?" she wondered.

"Well, from me, actually."

The look of shocked surprise that came upon her face was almost comical. She tugged his head down, and stroked his hair. "Sometimes you can be so thick."

"Never could hide the truth from you, Rose."

She huffed, and he let his eyes drift close in pleasure as she ran her fingers through his hair and over his scalp. "I'm not goin' anywhere, Doctor. I don't know what else I can do to convince you of that. I though about getting' it tattooed on my shoulder, but I don't like needles."

He squeezed her a bit, his affection overwhelming him for a moment. "Can you forgive me for being so stupid and stubborn?"

"Yeah." She planted a kiss in his hair. Then she yawned.

He looked up. "Are you tired?"

"Jus' a bit."

"How much is a bit, exactly?"

"Ish," she elaborated, and yawned again, and they grinned at one another.

"Do you want me to leave?"

Rose shook her head. "I want you to stay."

He adjusted his position so that he was laying on his side looking at her. "I'll stay as long as you want," he said softly.

Her eyes met his, and she smiled tenderly. "Good night," she said.

"Good night, Rose." He watched her close her eyes, and he began to count the Reasons to Make Love to Rose. By morning, he had well over a thousand.

End


	10. Confessions and Revelations

Revelations and Confessions

By Fluffy Nabs

Doctor Who – Tenth Doctor/Rose PWOP

Rating: M

So, Queen Victoria was a werewolf.

The thought was so funny that they were laughing about for nearly 15 minutes after re-entering the TARDIS, banishment from the British Empire notwithstanding. The two of them, giggling ferociously, simply closed the door behind them, set a new course, collapsed onto the ratty couch by the console, and fell on each other in helpless hilarity.

When the laughter was reduced to occasional chuckles, Rose tilted her head toward him, all bemusement, sparkling brown eyes, and flushed cheeks. Her hair was in disarray from the cold Scottish wind, so the Doctor reached up a hand to tuck the wayward strands behind her ear. His fingers traced the delicate pink shell of her ear and she shivered.

The flush in her cheeks was no longer from the invigorating breeze nor purely from laughter, any more. Her pupils fixed on his lips and dilated. He watched her bite her lip. They were still so new to each other. He wanted to kiss her.

"Do you want me to kiss you?" he asked softly.

She glanced away, ducked her head, still embarrassed by the novelty of being his lover. Then her eyes met his and she nodded. "Yeah," she whispered. She was nervous, breathless. She licked her lips.

The Doctor started to close the distance between them, and Rose met him half-way. She felt so warm against him, so soft. He could smell her skin, all soap and rain-scented wind and heather, honest sweat from running for their lives and something else. Something primal and dark and… furry? The Doctor pulled back slightly, his eyebrows furrowed.

Rose's eyes fluttered open and she met his gaze quizzically. "What?"

His lips quirked in a tiny smile. "You smell like wolf."

The blush of her lust drained from her face, replaced by a look of dawning horror. She sat back from him suddenly. "That's what he said."

"Who?" he asked. He sat back, as well, mentally cursing himself for ruining the mood.

"The werewolf."

"The werewolf said you smell like wolf?"

"No!" She shook her head in frustration. "He said, 'There's something of the wolf in you. You burn like the sun.'" She pressed her lips together, and stared in the direction of the console, though he knew she wasn't seeing it. "I feel like… I almost know what he means, but it's escaping me, like a dream." She shook her head, and looked at him beseechingly. "What did he mean, Doctor?"

He glanced down at the grid beneath them, then back up at her, clenching his jaw. "I knew it would come up sooner or later. I've been thinking of how to tell you."

"Tell me what?"

"What really happened at the Game Station."

She swallowed. "Oh. That."

"That," he agreed. "That, with a capital 'T.'"

She reached up and twirled a lock of hair around her finger. "Yeah. So… what did happen? I remember opening the Heart of the TARDIS, and hearing a song." She paused, her eyes faraway. "Such a beautiful song, never heard anything so beautiful. I dream about it, every night. That music..." She gave her head a little shake. "And then I woke up, and you regenerated. That's all."

So he told her what had happened, sparing nothing, answering all her questions. It didn't take long. When he was done, she sat in stunned silence, her face bathed in the aqua-colored light of the console, eerie and remote.

"Rose?" he asked softly, after letting her sit in silence for a few minutes.

She stood up and walked away from him.

The Doctor sprang from the couch, following her, but keeping his distance. "Rose?" he asked again. "Are you all right?"

She was making her way toward her bedroom. She glanced over her shoulder at him, her eyes large and serious. She held her hand out, palm facing him. He stopped. She entered her room and shut the door quietly behind her.

The Doctor stood in the corridor for a long time, watching her door, pondering. He supposed it must be a shock to suddenly learn that she existed not simply because her parents fell in love and got married and all that, but because she had gone through space and time as the entity known as Bad Wolf, and she had created herself. She was an everlasting paradox. She created herself so that she could turn 19, meet him, save him, become the Bad Wolf, and start the whole cycle over again by creating herself. It was a lot to take in. Then, of course, on top of that was the fact that for a few minutes, she'd been the most powerful entity in the universe. It sort of put a spin on one's sense of self, of the very structure of the universe which before had been taken for granted. The Doctor decided -- rather magnanimously, he thought -- to let her have some space.

The next day she came out of her room, white-faced and red-eyed. He was standing at the console, running a diagnostic to kill time while he waited for her. She walked directly up to him and started talking.

"I used to know who I was," she said softly. "I was Rose Tyler, daughter of Jackie and Pete Tyler. I lived on the Powell Estates in London, I had a boyfriend, a stupid job. Then I met you and we had all these adventures and I thought I changed. I thought I'd become something better than I was – but I was still Rose Tyler." She wrapped her arms around herself and ran her hands up and down as if she were cold. "My history was short and I knew everything about myself." She squeezed her hands until her knuckles were white. "And now, I'm the Bad Wolf." He watched her throat bob up and down as she swallowed heavily. "Is that why you let me come along? Did you sense something… about me? Something different?"

A soft smile stole across his face. "Yes," he said.

She looked down.

The Doctor crossed to her, something tender and deep welling up from within him, and placed a gentle hand under her chin, tipping her face up so she would look at him. "I sensed that you were bright, and curious, and bold, and compassionate. I sensed that you were adventurous, and quick-thinking. Didn't hurt that you'd saved my life once or twice." He smiled gently at her, eyebrows tipped up, the corners of his eyes crinkling.

Tears started falling down her cheeks.

He enfolded her in a hug, and she unfolded her arms to wrap them around him. "Oh, Rose," he said softly. "I asked you to come with me because I saw the potential human in you, not the all-powerful TARDIS interface."

"Interface?" she asked. "Is that what I am? Like a computer part?"

He wagged his head from one shoulder to the other. "Well," he temporized. "Not as such. Well," he amended. "Kind of. You see, the TARDIS isn't just _any_ computer, she isn't just _any_ ship. She's a living thing. I've told you before."

"Yeah," she said, her voice muffled by his shoulder.

"And _any_way," he stressed the last word. "It's not what you _are_, it's not what _defines_ you. That's something that _you_ decide. Will you be rude or polite or serious or silly or compassionate or detached or happy or sad? You have _choices_, Rose."

"But I didn't," she said. "I was always destined to be the Bad Wolf, because I had to be the Bad Wolf in order to exist in the first place, right?" She scrunched up her face. "I mean, suppose I had chosen to follow your advice, and let the TARDIS grow old and die. Wouldn't I have just… winked out of existence, then?"

He couldn't lie to her. So he told the truth. "Yes." She shivered in his arms, and he squeezed her tighter. "Very few people have a destiny, Rose," he said. "But there's something about destinies that most people don't know; once you fulfill them, the rest of your life is yours. You can make what you want out of it."

She was silent for a long time. "What if I'm not done? What if I'm still _trapped_ by fate?"

His wild, free Rose. He kissed the top of her head. "You trust me, yeah?"

She nodded. "Yeah." She raised her gaze to meet his, her eyes still wet from tears and rimmed in red, and he felt his heart clench from the emotion there. "Completely."

"Then hold still a moment."

She stilled, and he closed his eyes and reached out --

A thousand different lives flickered before him, all of them Rose's lives, each one different because of choices she made. He didn't go too far, he didn't peer too close. It was enough to know the strings were there. But there were some things he couldn't help but see; Jackie Tyler, older, bouncing a baby boy on her knee; Mickey, dressed all in black, his face concerned and serious; the letter T made of honeycomb hexagons; Rose dressed like a queen; Rose hefting an enormous gun; Rose accepting a diploma; Rose running, laughing, crying, sitting in a rocking chair, standing on a beach, slapping someone, shouting, her face an expression of sorrow, of joy, of confusion, of anger, of ecstasy…

The Doctor pulled back, buried the tendrils of what-could-be in the back of his mind lest he become mad with possibilities.

"Rose, I can see the potential of your life, and it's huge. Bigger than most people's, actually. There are so many choices stretching before you, yet to come. You have free will, you know. It's official, I've seen it."

A tremulous smile flitted over her lips. "I can do anything, and it'll really by my own choice? Not some… puppet show?"

"No strings," he promised.

Her smile bloomed full-fledge, now. "Now don't start callin' me Pinocchio."

The laughed together, and the Doctor felt his heart lift. He'd been so worried for her. He kissed her on the forehead and then grinned down at her. "Where to, Rose Tyler?" He bounded to the console, suddenly filled with relief and energy. "Anywhere, any when in the universe!" Ideas filled his head, of places and times she would find fascinating. "There's an absolutely fabulous market, in China. But not the country China, the _planet_ China. They have this foamy drink, sort of like peaches and blueberries, oh, you'll _love_ it!" He bounced to another set of controls. "Or if you like, we could go on an African safari in 1896! You've never seen such enormous elephants! Ooh!" He sprang from the console to stand just in front of her. "I know of this delightful little planet, and every life form is a flower. Even the people are flowers, they communicate by furling and unfurling their petals, isn't that brilliant?" He stood on his toes in anticipation of her choice. "Well?"

She was returning his grin, her million-wattage signature smile, painted in tones of gold and aqua from the lighting. "None of the above."

He raised his eyebrows, curious to see what she had come up with this time. It was usually excellent. "Welllll?" he asked again, drawing out the word.

She stepped closer to him, looked up at him through her eyelashes. His pulse suddenly skyrocketed. "I want," she said in low voice, "to go to a beach. Find me a world with no other people. I want turquoise waters and pink sand and brilliant blue skies." She grabbed his tie and pulled him ever so slightly closer. "Nothing dangerous that'll poison, sting, bite, or devour us, mind you." Her lips brushed the edge of his jaw. "I want to work on my tan… all… over."

He stood thunderstruck for a moment, as she lightly danced away and settled herself primly on the couch. As he stared at her, mouth agape, she arched her eyebrows and gestured to the console. "Doctor? You promised me anywhere, any when. I expect prompt delivery."

"Yes!" he shouted. "You want beaches? Pink sand, lemme think. Oh! Kirisonbo four! Their tropic seas have a distinctly turquoise hue, if I recall. Almost the entire planet is made from rose quarts, gives the sand a very pink color." He started setting coordinates. "Nothing dangerous… we'll set the time to the Mesgabarcic era – nothing but plants and bacteria." He winked at her, his hands flying over the controls. "Don't worry, nothing that'll make you sick." He pulled the final lever, and grabbed the edge. "Hang on!" he shouted.

A minute later the TARDIS settled and Rose ran out the doors. He dashed deeper into the TARDIS for just a moment to fetch something, and when he emerged he saw that Rose had stopped just outside, her face alight as she took in the promised pink sand, turquoise seas, and luminous blue skies, as well as the tall, flexible trees set back from the water line, the soft-looking long grasses, and the profusion of tiny, lime-green flowers. She turned her face to the fragrant breeze and then glanced at him over her shoulder. "Oh, this is brilliant!" she said.

"So glad you approve," he said. "You said something about a tan?"

"So I did," she agreed, and started walking toward the beach. As she went, she shed her jacket, her shirt, her jeans, her shoes and socks, and finally, her under things. When she was completely divested of clothes, she turned to him and held out her hand. "Join me?"

He jogged over to her, his grin getting wider and wider the closer her got. "Just one thing," he said. He handed her a large, soft blanket which he'd retrieved while she was outside. "This is to protect against sand getting into rather… sensitive places." He tilted his head down and gave her a thorough once-over. He shed his coat, letting it fall, and began removing the rest of his clothing slowly, letting his gaze roam over Rose's body freely. He enjoyed the fact that she watching him disrobe with obvious hunger in her eyes, her tongue caught between her teeth. Once nude, he rummaged in his coat pocket, and came out with a spray bottle of sunscreen. "And this," he said, flourishing it grandly, "is to protect against sunburn. Although…" he bobbed his head from side to side. "I might have difficulty reaching some areas." He looked back and forth between Rose's neck, enticingly exposed by the tilt of her head, and the bottle. "Maybe you should go first?"

She laughed, her expression knowing and delighted, and found a semi-shaded area to spread the blanket out on. On pretense of helping her, he managed to hinder her efforts, mostly because he was busy running his hands over her skin, and snatching quick kisses to the tender areas she least expected – the back of her knees, her ribs, the inside of her elbow, the nape of her neck. Finally they got the blanket stretched across the sand. They stepped onto it, careful not to track sand.

Rose turned, glancing back over her shoulder, and she lifted her hair from her neck, keeping it in a messy bundle atop her head. "Get my back, Doctor?"

He looked at her, at the long curve of her spine, dappled in sunlight and shadow from the tree above them. "Oh, yes," he managed, his throat tight, his voice low and breathy. He stepped closer to her and spritzed the sunscreen to the nape of her neck. He watched her shiver as the tiny droplets hit her skin. The Doctor leaned forward and kissed the shell of her ear, letting his breath raise the tiny hairs on her skin, as he pressed his hand to the newly anointed patch of skin and rubbed in the sunscreen. "Oh, I see," he breathed. "You like to be touched lightly," he spritzed another patch of skin. "You like a delicate stroke." He rubbed it in slowly, enjoying the sight of goosebumps rising all over her skin.

He covered her back, her shoulders, her arms, slowly working the sunscreen in. Before he reached her rear, he pressed the length of his body against her, his hands gripping her shoulders. Her exquisitely soft, round bum pressed into his arousal as she arched into him. He placed his lips to the tender spot beneath her ear, and whispered. "Lie on your stomach."

She lowered herself down to the blanket, raised her arms to rest her head on them, changed her mind, and made a small mound of sand under the blanket and used it as a hard pillow. She rested her head there, and then put her hands at her sides, arms slightly akimbo.

She closed her eyes, reveling in the warmth of the sun and the refreshing breeze that blew over her body in intermittent wafts. She heard the Doctor breathing behind her. A spritz, followed quickly by the feeling of the cool droplets of sunscreen landing delicately on her rear. Then the Doctor's hands, cool and soft, with just the right amount of teasing pressure. He made sure to thoroughly work in the liquid, and the feeling of his hands gliding over her skin made her inner muscles tighten. She could feel a wetness starting to gather between her legs.

Two more sprays in quick succession and the Doctor was rubbing the sunscreen into the backs of her thighs and knees. His long fingers brushed tauntingly at the tuft of hair she knew must be peeking out from the apex of her thighs, but he never did more than tease. In short order he was working on her calves, and when he got to her feet, he massaged them for a couple of minutes. There was a pause, and Rose found herself reveling in the sensual and relaxed sensation, as if her limbs were coursing with a languid desire with every pulse of her heart.

"Turn over, Rose Tyler," the Doctor told her, his voice low and husky.

She did, and she looked at him, his face serious, his eyes dark. His lips were parted, and she could see his pulse in his throat. She let her eyes wander down his chest, wiry and strong, and his arms, long and not overly muscled, but she knew the strength in them. His stomach, pale white, rippled abs with just a sprinkling of hair that started above his navel, skipped it, and picked up again below, growing thicker, where his arousal rose proudly from the thatch of hair there. She lingered on that, before quickly taking in his legs, the muscles bulging from his kneeling position. She looked once more at his arousal, studying it, and she felt a slow, broad smile crossing her lips.

"Like what you see?" He asked.

"Yeah," she said. "I do."

He crawled forward just a bit, until he was kneeling between her knees, and then, looking directly in her eye the entire time, he picked up the sunscreen, and sprayed it on her legs. This time he did both of her legs simultaneously, his hands traveling up and down in long, sure strokes. He started on the outside and worked his way in, touching her lightly on the inside of her thighs until they parted with a will of their own. Rose almost closed her eyes at the intense sensation of it, but the power in his gaze wouldn't allow her to. Next he sprayed the sunscreen on her stomach, and stroked her hips and waist and abs and ribs in motions that nearly tickled, but didn't. He had to adjust his position slightly in order to reach, so he straddled her hips, and she could feel his sac resting against her sex. The cool, heavy softness, the first substantial and purely sexual touch she'd received during this whole sunscreen application process, made her gasp, and she felt the release of her juice in anticipation. She tried to buck her hips, but the Doctor suddenly grabbed them and pinned her to the blanket.

"Don't move," he said. "Don't move a muscle unless I move it for your." He leaned forward and kissed her lightly, backing off when she tried to deepen it. "Don't… move."

Rose lay her head back again. The Doctor raised her arms, one at a time, positioning her hands next to her ears. He attended to her face, coating the shell of her ears, her forehead and cheeks, her chin, the skin between her nose and lips, and her neck. She was already wearing lip gloss with had sun protection in it, so he just kissed her there, lightly, teasingly. Thoroughly covering the skin of her arms and upper chest with the sunscreen, there was a long moment when the Doctor just stared at her breasts, the only part of her body that hadn't been lathered, yet.

Instead of spraying her breasts, the Doctor liberally applied the sunscreen to his own palms, and brought them to hover over her bosom, which, she noted with a tiny bit of humor in the one part of her brain which wasn't overwhelmed with lust, was heaving, romance-novel-style.

"Don't move, Rose," he said softly. Then he brought both of his palms down, putting the very slightest pressure on the very tips her nipples, which were already stiff and pebbled. Rose whimpered and tried not to arch upward into the sensation. She felt her stomach muscles tensing and she took a deep breath, which lifted her breasts toward him. He had anticipated that, however, and no matter how deeply she breathed, she could not make him touch her more than he wanted. The Doctor moved his hands in tiny circles, which got wider and firmer until he was touching her entire nipple and areola. Then suddenly he brought his fingers down and squeezed, almost hard enough to hurt. Rose cried out, and the Doctor relaxed his grip before moving his hands to a different position, and squeezing again, kneading her breasts, lifting them and pressing them, moving his hands around and around. The sensations seemed to go directly to her womb.

She brought her hands up and captured his head, tried to pull him close to her so she could kiss him. He kissed her eagerly, but while she was thus occupied, the Doctor grabbed Rose's wrists and pinned them above her head with one hand. He shifted, and her legs were nudged apart by his knees. She opened them willingly.

"I told you," he said, nearly growling, "Not to move."

"I couldn't help it," she gasped. She arched her back, pushing her hips up towards his.

"No," he ground out, his eyes dark and so intense that she caught her breath. He pushed his hips down, trapping hers under him in the sand, but his sex, while heavy and rigid against her, was not positioned correctly for entry.

"Please," she said softly.

He suddenly pressed his forehead to hers, his eyes tightly shut.

Rose stilled completely, her dark eyes wide as she tried to focus on his face, at the expression of almost pained intensity. "Doctor?"

He pulled his head back just enough so they could see each other properly. "I want…" he stopped, his face suddenly full of trepidation.

"What is it, Doctor?" When he didn't immediately answer, her gaze softened. "You can tell me."

"Rose, I know you… value your… privacy."

She smiled cheekily, her tongue briefly poking out from between her teeth. "Not very private right now, am I?"

He swallowed, glancing at the tongue, watching her lips speak, and then looking back into her eyes. "That's not the kind of privacy I mean," he said softly.

She looked puzzled. "Well, what do you mean?"

He took a deep breath. "Remember our first adventure, when the sun expanded and the Earth was destroyed, and I said that the TARDIS gets into your head and translates other languages for you?"

Rose nodded slowly, and he saw an inkling of understanding come into her expression.

"_I_ want inside your head, Rose Tyler," he said softly. "I want your permission to be close to you in the most… the most intimate way possible." He kissed her lips. "I want that so much it… it nearly hurts."

"Is that how Time Lords… do it? With telepathy?"

Something slightly sad stole over his features. "It's how I want to do it with you." He kissed her again, on the corner of her lips. "Please say yes," he breathed. He kissed the other corner of her mouth. "Please let me in," he whispered, and nibbled his way to her ear.

"What'll happen?" she asked, whispering.

He kept his mouth close to her ear, but he turned enough to watch her face. "I'll feel what you're feeling. The sensations." His tongue darted out to lick her earlobe and she shuddered beneath him. "The emotions." He pressed a kiss to the tender spot at the base of her jaw. "And you'll feel me."

"Will we… hear each other?" Her eyes were drifting closed at his ministrations.

"Only if you speak out loud," he murmured, before breathing lightly into her ear, and then gently biting her earlobe. "Please," he said. "Oh, Rose Tyler, _please_."

"Yes," she sighed.

And then he was kissing her with such exuberance that she only slowly registered the fact that he'd shifted himself until his sex was touching hers, and with tiny twitches of his pelvis he was teasing her entrance. Already slick with want, her body responded to the prompting and gushed against him, eager and hot.

He was still holding her hands above her head with his left hand. He took his right hand, and placed this first two fingers lightly against her temple and pressed his forehead gently to hers and --

Rose gasped a lungful of air inward and then released it in a quick, startled cry. She could _feel_ him inside of her, on top of, next to, surrounding her own emotions and sensations. She could feel the frantic pounding of both of his hearts, both against her own breast, and also as if they beat inside her ribcage, pushing the blood to tingling limbs. Her own sex was hot and heavy and tingling and yearning, and she felt the sparks of lust tripping through his organ into a deep-seated part of him. She could feel the urge to move forward, not only in her own body, but in his.

The Doctor did thrust forward then, and his pleasure commingled with hers so exquisitely that she nearly exploded. She'd never felt so good without pushing over the edge of orgasm before. But something -- she recognized the Doctor's inhibition -- stopped her from coming. "Not yet," he gasped. "It can get so much better."

He was about half-way inside of her, and he pulled back, only to push in again, slowly. Rose experienced the feeling that he did, as his sex pushed into her body. The wet gripping, the soft give, the hot enveloping of him by her. At the same time she was hyper aware of the sweet stretching as he opened her, and the luxurious weight of his body on hers, and the soft caress of his balls as they slowly brushed against her.

Rose squeezed her inner muscles around him, and the Doctor jerked spasmodically, uncontrolled for just that second. "This…" he gasped. "Better than anything…"

Suddenly he was thrusting into her, and Rose cried out, the double sensations of his experience and hers crashing through her mind and body. It built, higher and higher, a blaze in her loins that was echoed by an inferno in his. She was experiencing pleasure beyond anything she had ever felt before, higher and more intense than any gratification she'd ever known.

And suddenly she was coming and he was coming, and she couldn't breathe it was so intense, and he was screaming her name as he pushed into her so hard that they shifted upward on the sand, nearly off of the blanket. It seemed to last forever.

He was bowed into her, his long, lean body taut against hers for an endless second as he strained with everything he had to be inside of her as much as possible. Her legs were locked around his waist, and she could still feel her inner muscles clenching rapidly and tightly around his member. She was shuddering with the force of the experience they had just shared.

At long last, the Doctor slumped, his forehead slid from hers and his hand became limp, his fingers falling away from her temple. He rested against her, and suddenly sucked in a deep breath, as if he'd forgotten to breathe for too long. Perhaps he had.

Rose was soaked with sweat, and couldn't have moved in her life depended on it. Her legs, still locked around his waist, started trembling, and she had to drop them back to the blanket.

Wearily, the Doctor rolled from her, next to her, and flung an arm over his eyes. He was gasping, covered in perspiration, and every line of his body broadcast his exhaustion. "Rose Tyler," he panted.

"Mmm?"

"Just…" he paused and she could hear the smile in his voice. "Just, Rose Tyler."

She felt her own grin coming on. "I mean, I thought last time was amazing. But _this_ – this was _amazing_! I've never done anything even remotely like that." She stuck the tip of her tongue out between her teeth and grinned cheekily at him. "You?"

"Never," he said, his voice thick. His free hand found hers and he squeezed, and she squeezed back. "I've been wanting to do that with you ever since you dressed up for Christmas with Charles Dickens."

She giggled. "So you did think I was beautiful?"

"Oh, yes," he said softly. He hesitated d for a very long time, just looking at her profile. "I have a confession, Rose."

She languidly turned her head to him. "Oh?"

He took a deep breath. "I thought we were going to die in Downing Street. And you already meant so much to me, then."

"'I could save the world, but lose you,'" she quoted.

He squeezed her hand again. "You know my people are telepathic. And ever since the war…"

Rose's eyes were compassionate as she looked at him. "I can't imagine how lonely you must feel."

"You," he said, his voice low and intent. "You came along you were so bright and good and beautiful. And you trusted me. And when I thought we were going to die, I reached out for you Rose. You took my hand, and I grabbed onto you with everything I could."

She brought his hand up to her mouth and kissed his fingers.

"Rose, you have to understand, I mean it. I grabbed onto you _with everything I could_." He stressed the last words carefully, and his eyes bored into hers. "I…" he swallowed, but didn't look away. "I established a permanent telepathic link between us."

She froze. "What?"

"Not like I can listen in on your thoughts," he said, rushing the words out. "It's like… like listening to someone breathe over the telephone. You know they're there, and you can hear their presence, that's it." His eyes searched hers, willing her to understand.

"My dreams," she said suddenly, her eyes opening wide. "That's when my dreams started." She sat up, pulled her hand from his. "Were those just dreams or -- or what?"

He sat, too, reached for her hand, stopped, and dropped his arm awkwardly to his lap. "I was there," he said. "I'm sorry." He couldn't drop his eyes, though he felt ashamed enough to want to.

She stared at him. "What gave you the right to do that? To make that link without my knowledge? Without my permission?"

"Nothing," he said softly. "I didn't have the right, Rose. I was scared, I was afraid I would lose you."

Tears started welling in her eyes. "So the dreams, were they just for fun?"

He shook his head and waved a hand in denial. "No, Rose, it wasn't like that. I never intended to -- to go into your mind like that, actually."

"But you did!"

"There was a knock on the door!" He said, almost wailing.

She blinked, and tears fell. "What? What door? What are you goin' on about?"

He took a deep breath, hating himself for every tear that fell. "Imagine a door between two rooms. One room is my mind, and the other is yours. The door had always been closed. When I established the link, I basically just put up the door, so the possibility of opening it was always there, the connection was there, but I had never used it. I had never opened the door."

She pulled her knees up against her chest and wrapped her arms around them. She was listening.

He started gesturing with his hands. "And one night you were asleep and there was a knock. So I -- I opened the door. I wasn't going to go through. My intent was just to check the locks, sort of. And somewhere in the back of my mind I thought that maybe you had discovered the link and were making use of it. As a species, humans are latently telepathic, though most of them repress it, and you're quite brilliant enough to develop the --" He saw her annoyed look and stopped his lecture. He took another deep breath. "And you were aroused," he managed to grind out. "I tried to shut the door," he brought his hands together to illustrate. "I tried immediately to close it, because frankly, Rose, it was… overwhelming. And I couldn't shut it."

"Then what?"

"I walked through," he admitted slowly, remembering, despising his weakness. "And saw you kissing me."

Rose bit her lip.

"And I couldn't just… watch," he said, forcing out the words. "I'm so sorry."

She chewed on her lip, her eyes downcast. She pressed her hands to her face, and he could see the tears leaking through her fingers. "I trusted you," she said.

"I know," he said. He felt something running down his cheeks and realized that he was crying, too. "I'm sorry!" His voice broke.

She lowered her hands and saw his tear-streaked face, and she looked shocked for a moment. "You didn't have to tell me this," she told him.

"No, but I did. I did have to tell you, Rose. You deserve to know. You deserve better."

"Better than you?"

He nodded.

She pressed her lips together and sniffed, and shook her head. "You stupid git," she said. "There is no one better than you, Doctor." She took a deep breath, then another. The she held out her hand. "I understand what you did. And I understand why. That doesn't make it okay, though. All right?"

He grabbed her hand desperately, and nodded. "I know. Rose, I'm _sorry_."

"When was the last time?"

"Just after Cardiff, with Margaret. You remember the couch you conjured in my mind?"

She nodded, and tugged him closer, and he came willingly. She pulled his head so that it rested against her chest, and he listened to her heart beating strongly within her ribs. "I believe you," she said. "I forgive you."

He wrapped his arms around her. "Thank you," he whispered. "Oh, thank you." He squeezed her. "I was so afraid."

Rose reached up a hand and started running it through his still-sweaty hair. "Afraid of what?"

"I was afraid that you would leave me," he confessed.

"I made my choice," she said softly. "I'll stay with you as long as I can. Forever."

In his hearts, the Doctor knew that her forever would be short, only a few more decades, possibly less than even that. But he would take whatever she would give him.

After they'd been holding on to one another for what seemed like years, or only seconds, for one of those tiny endless moments that crystallize in the memory, a persistent buzzing made Rose look around. "It's my mobile," she said, frowning. She stood and hopped across the still hot sand to her jeans, and fished the device out of her pocket. She flipped it open and pressed it to her ear. "Hello?"

The Doctor watched her face while she spoke, at once relieved and put out that a phone call had ended the emotional scene.

"It's Mickey," she said to him, then turned her attention back to the mobile. "Yeah? Yeah, that is weird." She paused, listening. "All right, yeah, I'll ask him. Yeah, tell Mum we're coming home." She paused again. "Love you too, mate. Later." She hung up, and looked at him. Then she raised an eyebrow and smiled. Her face was still streaked with tear tracks, but they weren't falling freshly any more.

He stood, smiling back. "Trouble at home?" The anticipation of a good adventure was delicious.

"Might be aliens taking over a school," she said, and started gathering her clothes. "He thought we might be interested in checkin' it out."

He shrugged his coat on, but bundled the rest of his clothes under one arm and the blanket under another, which sent Rose into gales of laughter. She was actually pointing at him and laughing. "Yes," he said, ignoring her mirth. "I am very interested in aliens taking over a school." He held his arm out to her and she took it, still chuckling heartily. "What's so funny, anyway?"

"You!" she gasped. "You look like a flasher!"

He peered down at himself, long limbs and knobby knees and shriveled member, all pale skin and dark hair. He grinned wildly and started giggling, too. They laughed all the way to the TARDIS.

End


End file.
